Death Awaiting Epiphany

I avoid looking on death,
Averting my gaze and holding my breath
As I pedal past the raccoon, spread-eagle on the road,
Its innards outside,
A bewildered expression frozen on the bandit face
(or is it decomposition that makes the eyes so sad?).

Once I dressed a friend for burial,
A gathering of women tugging underclothes over a limp body,
Wiping body fluids that escaped out of the eye socket,
Rust-colored tears.
We laughed over shared memories,
Philosophized about resurrection and heaven,
as one must while handling the dead.
It was years before I could eat barbecue sauce
Without picturing those tears dripping toward a cold metal gurney,
A vision of death not quite ready for company.

I suppose decay, rather than death, repulses me
(or frightens?),
The unnatural tilt of a powerless neck,
An inner life left in disarray,
Rotting in the glare of an oblivious sun.

Body bereft of spirit,
Untidy emotion awaiting epiphany.

Soul Food

Recently, a friend and I chatted about ballroom dancing. My friend is a lovely woman, with a classic and timeless beauty. I watched her dance once, and even while dancing with an amateur partner she exuded a captivating grace. To me, ballroom dance represents the epitome of elegance: Audrey Hepburn in motion, if you will.

I asked my friend to tell me her favorite dances. The first answer came easily and seemed a natural fit. For smooth dance, she loves the flowing elegance of the waltz. She hesitated a bit on her choice of a favorite rhythm dance. "I used to hate the cha-cha-cha," she said. "The movement is different, and I've had to work very hard at that dance." She went on to describe her early discomfort with the dance, the syncopated hip movements and the sensuality that challenged her and dragged her far from her comfort zone. But she has grown to love the form, and I sense that she has discovered much about herself in the process, a self awareness that has nothing and everything to do with dance. Our food came and the conversation turned to other topics, but I have reflected on our chat and how dance fits into my own musings of late.

Yesterday, needing to ponder through my conundrum of the week, I threw on sneakers and left my quiet house just after dawn, needing the movement of a brisk walk in the wind to set my thoughts in motion and help me sort through them. For a while, I just let the wind move through my head as I felt the rhythm of my footfalls and let my mind wander. After a time, the thoughts began to arrange themselves into patterns.

I have been examining some of my own prejudices and reactions lately. Many of us at times seek to deny the physical appetites in order to enhance the spiritual. For example, Hindu monks eat only to sustain life. Catholic priests and many Buddhist monks take a vow of celibacy. Even in mainstream society we periodically fast for greater religious insight, subjugating the physical. We read scriptures like Matthew 26:41, which says, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" and we come to the seemingly logical conclusion that the spirit is superior to the body. For me, that occasionally evolves into the error of associating things primarily physical with weakness.

My light bulb moment for the morning walk started with a scripture. Doctrine & Covenants 88:15 reads, "And the spirit and the body are the soul of man." The soul, the post-resurrection self on the path to perfection, is comprised not of the spirit alone, but of the spirit and the body. We bury the spirit in baptism and the body in death. Through the Savior's atonement, both spirit and body rise again, joined inseparably.

From Art2Be

I thought back to the cha-cha-cha and other similar journeys of self-discovery that blend the physical and the spiritual (or mental/emotional). For instance, years ago, while at a conference for music teachers, I attended a session on Body Mapping, a therapeutic tool that brings together physical experience and artistic expression.  Therapists use the technique in diverse settings, from working with victims of AIDS to helping musicians and dancers understand dysfunctions that inhibit their art. As described in the session I attended, therapists ask their patients to illustrate their body (or the affected part of their body, in the case of an injury or other physical dysfunction). Regardless of the degree of artistic talent, the process of putting pencil to paper allows the patient to better identify, describe, and understand physical pain and the emotional trauma that often accompanies that pain.

Other examples spring to mind. In college, I once crawled underneath the sink in my bathroom in order to stimulate creative thought and push through writer's block. (It worked, by the way.) My son relieves stress by playing his more energetic piano pieces very loudly and rapidly, with lots of arm pounding and foot tapping, his body swaying as his mind breaks free. My husband laces his spiritual lessons with insights gained on the football field.

I recently ran into what was, for me, a surprising connection between the physical and the emotional/spiritual. David Schnarch, a respected clinical psychologist and author, asserts that "sexuality is a powerful window into who we are," that our sexual attitudes and habits provide significant insight into our approach to life, and vice versa. I have thought, and even written, about that a fair amount...although most of that writing will never appear in this blog. His is an intriguing thought.

Whether in terms of sexuality or philosophical conundrums, artistry or athletics, I am beginning to glimpse a vision of the power behind the union of the body and the spirit. To re-purpose an oft-quoted scripture: "neither is the body without the spirit, nor the spirit without the body, in the Lord." Just as the harmonic blend of two voices produces a sound that transcends the reach of either voice on its own, we open ourselves to new vistas of emotional and physical possibilities when we work to unite body and spirit on equal terms.

Changing of the Guard

Something about the ever-present cornfields here in central Illinois almost dares me to find them attractive, even now, when only stubble and dirt clods reach to the line of trees on the horizon. Oddly, despite my Rocky Mountain and Green Mountain roots, I do find myself irresistibly captivated by this agrarian sea that surrounds me. The city of Springfield offers less in the way of back country charm. Still, my drive home from work today brought me down wide, tree-lined avenues, signature scenery for the heartland. Here and there, trend-setting trees sported yellow and orange plumage, a sure sign that crisp autumn air waits just around the corner.

As I drove, I pondered how different life will look the next time I watch the trees trade their summer greenery for fall colors. This weekend, I will write to Devin on his mission and tell him about Alec's final Homecoming game. I might even confess that I teared up a bit when the senior float passed, carrying Alec and the other graduating football players.

I still picture Alec as a mischievous kindergartner, grinning gleefully as he tells how he and 10-year old Devin sneaked out onto the roof of the house during quiet time. Next autumn, the two brothers will drive off to college together, Devin a recently returned missionary and Alec a brand new adult. They will likely spend Sunday afternoons eating dinner with one set of grandparents or the other, building bonds and memories in a way their younger sister may not have the opportunity to enjoy a decade later when the grandparents approach their nineties.

The changing seasons seem to expose the mortality in all of us (at least those of us dancing around that mid-century mark). One cousin asked recently, "How did we get so old all of a sudden?" Another reminded me that my generation has become the aunts and uncles (and even grandparents!) that I remember so fondly from my school days. Back when those aunts and uncles still attended PTA meetings and sent children of their own off to college, I used to sing along to Bonnie Raitt's "Nick of Time":

I see my folks, they're getting old, I watch their bodies change

I know they see the same in me, And it makes us both feel strange

No matter how you tell yourself, It's what we all go through

Those eyes are pretty hard to take when they're staring' back at you

Scared you'll run out of time

I loved the song then, knew all the words. Now I understand it in a way I never could in my twenties.  The thought of getting old myself inspires no particular horror. But I raise my children here on the prairie, 1000 miles away from those aunts and uncles and parents who played such a pivotal role in my life. I find myself indeed scared I'll run out of time to share my extended family with my sons and daughter who know them primarily through long outdated stories.

See? Those corn-stubble vistas and colorful trees have me waxing nostalgic and feeling old. Pretty soon, winter will set in. I'll find a few more gray hairs, mark another milestone or two. But spring hovers in the wings even when the north wind sends frigid air down my neck. Nostalgia will have to give space eventually to rebirth and the blossom of new opportunity. The grandparents will once again trade their cross-country skis for hiking boots, and I will wake up to find that the world has not ended quite yet.

This I Believe

(Last week, the Mormon Women blog published my testimony, my thoughts on God and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You can read that here, if you want. Today, my essay is different, more on the lines of the "This I Believe" movement, spearheaded by NPR and based on a 1950s radio show of the same name that was hosted by Edward R. Murrow.)

I should state up front that I believe in God. Moreover, I’m a Christian. And I try to be a pretty obedient Christian. With a lot of commandments available for keeping or breaking, sometimes a person can get a little overwhelmed. When I need a dose of simplicity, I look to the first commandments from God and the ones He said He thought were the most important. I think of God telling Adam and Eve in the garden to raise children and take good care of the earth. It probably sounded easy then, with flowers all around and no crying children or rebellious teenagers. Later on, in the confusion of opinions in Jerusalem, the Savior's commandments to love God and love other people may have given folks a little more pause to reflect. Still, I think those few guiding principles can lead to a good life, and I try to follow them with more or less success from day to day. Do things that would please God. Love other people, without regard for their color or nationality, their economic status or philosophical preference, the style of their clothes or their ability to conform to social norms. Treat the environment with respect. Raise my children to seek beyond themselves and make the world a better place.

For me, beauty plays an essential role in that process. I seek for beauty in nature, in art, in people, in life experience. I believe I have both the ability and the responsibility to create, discover and share beauty in its many forms.

One hundred years ago, Raymond Macdonald Alden (most famously known for his story “Why the Chimes Rang”) wrote a story about a marvelous palace built by the combined music of an accidental orchestra of musicians. I believe in music and its power to create palaces in our souls and bridge the gaps that separate us from others. That music can take many forms and still reach the soul in vital ways—from professional chamber music, to the aching notes of soul or country, to an amateur musician with just the right inspiration or just the right occasion. I hear music in the melody of a life well lived and in the jubilation of a challenge met and conquered. I love the story of the palace built by music, and I love that the musicians had to combine their notes together for the creation to commence. It feels so true and so possible.

I believe that we cannot live life fully as hermits, that human relationships are an integral part of our development and the richness of our lives. I believe that serving others leads us to the discovery of ourselves and is essential if we want to explore the boundaries of our potential as individuals and as a society.

I believe that each of us is, at the core, essentially spiritual, and that our spiritual core at some point begins to yearn for its source of light. If we ignore that need, we risk destabilizing ourselves. The quest for the source of light and for an understanding of our relationship to that light can define our life in wonderful ways, even though at times the journey can prove unsettling. As a parent, I believe I have the responsibility to give my children the tools they need for their own spiritual quest: an understanding of the language of the spirit, a desire to seek, and a solid base from which to start. We need to believe. It gives us root.

Preserving the Ideal: Mason Jar Memories

For years I kept a dusty Mason jar, filled with home-bottled cherries, on my kitchen shelf. I have no idea how the jar arrived in my kitchen. I do know that I have never bottled cherries, and I know that my family would never eat the fruit. And yet, the jar presided over years of holiday meals and fresh bread, hurried breakfasts and midnight snacks. Perhaps I hoped that it would lend a sense of pioneer wholesomeness and a promise of home-cooked love that would settle over my family.

For me, personally, the cherries brought a touch of my childhood to my adult life. Growing up, canning season was a bustling reality at our house, following on the heels of gardening season. As autumn approached, Mother alternated between sewing our school clothes and minding the jars rumbling away in the canner on the stove. She bottled applesauce, pears, pickles, peaches, tomatoes, and whatever fruit was native to the area we called “home” that year. When our travels took us out West to visit family, we gathered cherries from the orchards in central Utah. I never liked the taste of the cherries as much as I liked the chunky applesauce and the bread and butter pickles, but I loved the way they looked with the rich burgundy of the cherry juice. And I loved the vacation memories they brought.

As my children grow older and my confidence in my nurturing skills dwindles, my own mother rises higher and higher on the pedestal of ideal motherhood. I struggle with the daily grind of cooking and remember family dinners and trays of fanciful holiday treats on New Year’s Eve. I sigh impatiently when my younger children want to play a made-up game, and I remember Mother playing ball with me in the park and making a special tent to go over the card table. I explain to my teenager that I cannot possibly manage all of his activities along with my own, and I remember how Mother used to drive me across town for ballet three times a week.

I will never be the mother to my own children that my mother was to me, just as I will never eat that dusty bottle of cherries. But the ideal still presides over my kitchen thoughts and colors my dreams.

Remembering

Brady...back in triathlon days

20 years ago this week, I lost my husband. Silly phrase, that. I didn't "lose" Brady, of course. I knew exactly where he was. He lay on the bed in front of me. After hours in a coma, heart racing and breathing ragged, he opened his eyes briefly, as if to note that the important people had gathered for his transition moment. We had--most of us, anyway. His cousin and close friend did not hear the news in time, but Brady could wait no longer. He closed his eyes, drew one last breath and crossed a bridge, out of our sight for a time.

My father gave me a priesthood blessing that night. He blessed me, among other things, with the ability to do what I needed to do to wrap things up and leave my relationship with Brady behind until the eternities. At the same time, he reminded me that a closeness would continue and that Brady would always remain near, would always care.

I had forgotten the specifics of that blessing until I read my journal just now. Looking back with the perspective of time and experience, I see inspiration in my father's words. Brady and I shared just three years together as husband and wife. We were young and stupid, trying to be grownups and, more often than not, falling short.

Just two months after Brady died, I moved cross country, seeking fresh air and a chance to remember how to be young. I married again, a year and a half later. I have always wondered what Brady thought about that. Even though I knew without a doubt that I did the right thing, for a long time I still felt a twinge of guilt, a sense that I had betrayed Brady somehow, or at least that I had betrayed the sensibilities of his family.

I have visited his grave over the years, reporting in. "Devin is growing tall, Brady. He's smart and handsome. You would be so proud." And later, pleading, "Please help me raise your son. I'm trying my best, but he's struggling, and I feel so inadequate." Then, just a year ago, I sat in the Salt Lake temple with Devin for the first time. I prayed fervently that Brady could share in that moment somehow, that he could watch his son prepare to serve a mission, that he could see the fine man Devin had become.

Devin and others have sensed Brady's presence over the years. I never felt I deserved that experience. But I find myself, all these years later, wondering what it will be like to see him again. I hope we can be friends. I hope we can sit down and compare stories over a cup of hot chocolate. I hope we can take our grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) for walks in the clouds and argue about whether they inherited their intellect and talent from Grandma or from Grandpa.

In those early years, I wanted to wield my pen to write a stunning tribute to Brady. I soon realized how very little I knew him, that I would do better to raise his son well than to try and create a life that Brady himself had not yet lived. Now I find that I have nothing profound to say. In some way and in his own time, Brady will find a way to tell his own story. I don't pretend to understand eternity, and I cannot paint heaven. But I do know that Brady lives on. I know I will see him again, and I think he will smile when he sees me. I hope he does.

Until then, I will simply live my life. Now and then I will look up and wink at the sky. I will hear a snatch of a song or catch a glimpse of a Rocky Mountain sunset, and I will remember a life I had the honor to share just briefly.

Olympics of the Heart

I had an Olympic moment this morning--a throwback to the 2010 Olympics, actually. Alec's CD blared kd lang when I turned on the truck this morning, and it took me back to the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics, to a moment that for some reason struck me to the core. Even if kd lang leaves you a little flat, stay with me. This post is really much more about love than music. I wrote this two years ago, but the feelings still hit me every time I hear "Hallelujah."


I love the Olympics, from the record-breaking runs to the heart-breaking spills. For the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, however, the defining moment for me came in the opening ceremonies, when kd lang sang the anthem “Hallelujah.” I sat still, electrified, from the opening notes of the song. I don’t really know what it was, precisely, that held me mesmerized. As Alec says, “She’s got some pipes.” But it wasn’t just the amazing voice. The magical marriage of kd lang’s voice with Leonard Cohen’s poetry produced something greater than either of them.

Alec downloaded the song to his ipod recently, and more often than not he plays it during our pre-dawn drive to seminary. At the opening chords, we fall silent, listening, drinking in the music as it sinks and swells inside the car. I think of King David, baffled that he can please the Lord despite his fall from grace, baffled that the love of God reaches his broken soul. I think of Samson, blind and disgraced but strong again, pulling down the arches in a last heroic act.

I think, too, about love. We use the same word for such widely disparate and often conflicting emotions and actions. We grow up talking about our “God of love,” and then we experience the tawdriness of human love, and somehow God falls in our eyes. Our anthems of praise fall flat because we don’t believe them anymore, because in our failures we cannot raise our eyes to find the divine. We lose confidence in our ability to please God. Then, as we look to the ground, our shoulders hunched and our hearts broken with the effort of trying and failing, we mumble our own version of “hallelujah.” Perhaps it’s a simple prayer of sorrow or a finally genuine plea for help. Perhaps it’s a kind act toward some other damned soul crouched far from the victory arch.

And then, in the depths, we feel it. Somehow our “cold and broken hallelujah” stumbled up to heaven. God’s voice reached down to meet it, and the resulting chord begins to grow. The heart still stained and tattered by our attempts to find love here on earth gathers strength, and hope swells a “hallelujah” finally acceptable to a God who loves us despite our failures. Perhaps God loves us because when our failures broke us, we still tried to sing.

The Best and Brightest

"You are a chosen generation," we tell them. "God saved His best and brightest to send down to earth for these winding up scenes." In twenty years of teaching teenagers, I have delivered such lessons dozens of times. We sense, at times, the urgency of our days, the need for strong leaders and noble hearts. We know how much the world requires of our youth, and we attempt to inspire them, to motivate them upward to the great heights we hope they can reach.

And then, almost in the next breath, we take those visions of greatness and sweep them out of reach. We begin to make excuses for the youth, for ourselves. They are so tired. They face such great temptations. Consider the homes in which they live: the physically or emotionally absent fathers, the abuse, the difficult finances. They work so hard to meet the demands of schoolwork, that to expect more out of them would be unfair. You know the routine because you have made those same excuses for your own children and for others.

I do not have the answers. But I know that if we want these youth to reach the heights, we need to set them on the path, and we need to give them the tools to climb. We cannot climb for them and then feed them cookies while we show them photos from the top of the mountain. Nor can we sip our cocoa and shove them out the door to go climb the mountain on their own, only to grumble at their failure when they turn back before they reach the summit.

Yousef Karsh, the famous photographer, started life in Turkish Armenia. When just 14 years old, he fled the Armenian genocide and eventually landed in Canada. He lived with an uncle, who recognized and nurtured his talent. From humble beginnings, Yousef built a successful career photographing influential leaders and celebrities all over the world. His iconic portrait of Winston Churchill glared from the cover of Life Magazine in May 1945, earning him rare praise from the prime minister, who said, "You can make even a roaring lion stand still to be photographed."

One biographer described the 20-something Yousef as "young, talented and hungry." That phrase caught my eye. Hunger, both physical and metaphorical, represented a key ingredient in Yousef's success. I thought of other hungry youth who used their challenges as a motivation to success: Stephen Hawking, Oprah Winfrey and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to name just a few.

Victor and Mildred Goertzel researched hundreds of the world's most influential people for their classic book Cradles of Eminence. Three quarters of their research subjects sprang from troubled childhoods. Over one quarter succeeded despite serious physical handicaps. The Goertzels concluded, among other things, that the drive to compensate for disadvantages actually propelled these individuals to their eventual success. In essence, hunger led to greatness.

How, then, do we recognize and nurture that hunger into a positive force? Even more difficult, how do we awaken motivating hunger in youth stifled by complacency? If our youth are to rise to great heights, they first have to dream. They need a reason to look upward. Clearly, the answer does not lie in manufacturing tragic circumstances for our children. Neither does it lie in shielding them from every difficulty or immediately fixing every problem for them.

We can give them space to design and build, fail and fly. We can cheer their successes and hug them through their failures. We can chase our own dreams and share them. Above all, we can expect much and love much.

Loving Away the Fear

Photo from SodaHead web site.

My children have died a hundred deaths in my imagination, and my heart has broken over and over again. My bank account has run dry; my house has burnt to the ground; my car has careened off cliffs and into trees; intruders invade my home on dark nights. Is it peculiar to women, this almost irresistible tendency to pre-live the possibility of tragedy and lie awake in midnight fear?

I remind myself that worry accomplishes nothing good. Fretting does nothing to prepare me for the actual tragedies of life, big or little, nor does my imagining a scenario provide some sort of mystical immunization against real danger. Quite the opposite, in fact. Worry interrupts my sleep, shifts my focus from matters of greater importance, and wastes hours I could more productively donate to joy.

As I pondered the relationship between worry and fear and our inability to feel love and fear at the same time, I began to chew on the possibility that incorporating greater love into my life could provide an antidote to the worry that gnaws away at my equilibrium. My ponderings led me to the scripture in 1 John 4:18 that reads:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

I sensed a key in that verse somewhere and began to study it in context. I discovered a rich lesson on love in 1 John 4. That "perfect love," the love that casts out fear, is the love of Christ. It is not my power or my love that casts out Satan and the fear and worry that he inspires, as if I could love myself up that tower of Babel to reach godly power. Rather, it is the love and power of the Savior Himself. Negativity and fear flee in the face of His spirit and His grace. 


My part, then, is to accept into my life the Spirit and grace that the Savior offers. I bring that Spirit into my life by loving others, by knowing and emulating Jesus Christ, and by trusting God. Believing that He loves me, trusting in that love, gives me the key to casting out fear. That ability to trust, to truly live a Christlike life, takes time and experience, repentance and work. Unfortunately for impatient souls like me, there is no shortcut. I come to know God bit by bit through the years as I study and as I hike the peaks and valleys of life. Fortunately, God possesses an extraordinary abundance of patience and a willingness to shower blessings and peace upon me just as quickly as I can open my heart enough to hold them. 


Ultimately, having the Spirit dwell in me and feeling that trust are gifts of God that I need to prepare to receive. The more I give place for the perfect love of the Savior in my soul, the more fear and worry fade away. As I cease to fear, I can eventually feel the peace of being "made perfect in love." Then what shall I do with those midnight hours? And how will the world spin on its way without my worry to hold it aloft?

A Rebellion in Bloom

The sky threatened rain this morning, or rather promised it, and the wind covered the grass underneath the plum trees with rose petals. It all sounds lovely and romantic, with a scented carpet of yellow and pink. From the road, it looks as if the yellow rosebush fairly exploded with color, spilling sunshine. A closer inspection, however, reveals leaves spotted with holes and blooms past their prime. My rosebushes needed a haircut before the approaching rain left them looking like street beggars in faded rags once vibrant.

Accordingly, I put the dog out on her chain for her morning sniff and forage and gathered my clippers from the tool chest. Much to the consternation of Emily Post or the mothers of random southern debutantes or whoever really cares about such things, I padded around to the flower garden in my pajamas to gather spent blooms and attempt to tidy up my rather messy garden.

I know little about gardening, from the perspective of either aesthetics or horticulture. The first year in our new home, the day lilies timidly hugged the side of the garage, leaving plenty of space for rosebushes and a small, unassuming black-eyed Susan plant. But the day lilies have now thrown away any pretense at timidity, flinging their skinny green arms wide and boldly claiming new territory. From a distance I fail to distinguish the yellow lilies from the roses they overshadow. Not content with their own debauchery, the lilies have corrupted the black-eyed Susans and they, too, have wilfully chosen to ignore their boundaries.

Amid the rebellion of the garden stand four rose bushes: one staunchly white, one sunny yellow, one white edged in pink, and one that blooms pink and fades to lavender. The roses love sunshine and heat. When I wilt in the 90 degree weather, they burst forth in an untidy profusion of dozens of blooms. I cut a bouquet of garden flowers over the weekend, arranging them in a vase on the dining room table. Away from the blue sky and fresh air, however, the blooms paled sadly and drooped a bit, no longer confident in the absence of sunshine.

I grew up with roses on the south side of the house. Mother tested new roses for Jackson and Perkins in those days, flowers with names like Snowfire and Yankee Doodle. I remember the white boxes arriving in the mail and scrawny bushes soaking in the bathtub before Mother planted them in her garden alongside the driveway. She planted hybrid teas, mostly, elegant flowers that would never explode willy-nilly in quite the way mine do. Roses like the ones in my childhood memories belong in orderly gardens, well spaced and well tended.

My roses have neither the beauty of the hybrid teas, nor the freedom of the day lilies. Their blooms lack polish and proper balance. They fail to present as well in a vase as they do out in the sunshine. At the same time, try as they will, they cannot reach thorny branches as wide as they would like. I trim the bushes a little each time I cut a drooping bloom, and I cut them back to almost nothing in the winter, leaving naked stumps to weather out the frost and snow.

I have been thinking lately about gardens, about living somewhere in the netherzone between elegance and freedom. I remember a few hybrid tea days, when my resume brimmed with promise. But the days I miss are the lily days, those years when I flung my arms wide and thoroughly enjoyed life. I traveled. I explored intellectual landscapes and watched the world open up before me. I recognized only those boundaries I chose to accept.

I no longer feel the freedom of the lily days. The modesty of my bank account, combined with the responsibilities that tend to accompany middle age, keep that kind of freedom tantalizingly out of range. Cornfields out my kitchen window lack the breathtaking quality of Alaskan summers or the wonder of a full moon through the steam of a geyser.

And yet, maybe the simple lilies still have lessons to teach me. They create free space between the garage and the bricks, ignoring artificial boundaries, thriving in the heat and soaking up the rain. They even handle the occasional frost, cheerfully rebounding with blossom after blossom. I think maybe I can find some lily days again. I just have to remember how to stretch my arms and twirl.

Life in the News Feed

Because this just begs for a FB post...

I went for a bike ride the other day and, as often happens when I ride alone without music in my ear, I found myself composing my morning in the form of a Facebook status. I condensed my glorious ride amid the cornfields into various haikus extolling the wonders of birdsong and the relative merits of prairie wind and New England hills in building strong lungs and muscles. Pure poetry, I tell you. I almost never post my mid-exercise poetic ramblings for public consumption (or, rather, the consumption of those lucky 308 people subjected occasionally to my mutterings on their news feed). However, I find it amusing that I think of my life in those terms.

A friend of mine once found herself in the uncomfortable spotlight of an ongoing news event. As the spokesperson for one side of a political issue, she saw her views reduced to 10-second sound bytes. She would respond to interview questions thoughtfully, only to discover hours later that the sound byte that made the evening news gave a distressingly skewed vision of her stance.

I find the Facebook news feed somewhat akin to the 10-second sound byte: life condensed into a phrase or two. However, in social media I retain control over my 10 seconds of fame (unless, of course, my teenage son sneaks onto my account). Control is a wonderful thing, though with the control comes also the necessity of taking responsibility for that passionate comment posted in the heat of the moment. Oops.

The sociolinguist in me loves the alternately fascinating and annoying window into a filtered world that social media provides. I have a host of people from various phases of my life that I now recognize in snippets, like the vision of a party illuminated in the pulse of a strobe light. Mark builds a marvelous collection of photos from his daily commute into Boston. A host of friends poke fun at life with a sardonic wit that leaves me laughing to myself in an empty house in the middle of the morning.  A former student of mine sailed around the world this spring and posted pictures that inspire me with possibilities.

On the other hand…well, I will spare you my diatribe against emotional exhibitionism, unresearched political scare tactics, the endless minutiae of health woes, and those awful “copy this into your status if you want to end world hunger/support abused children/tell your mother you love her” statuses that leave you feeling like a heartless guttersnipe for scoffing and refusing to re-post. Men and women have died for the right to freedom of speech. Who am I to trample on that freedom just because my news feed occasionally makes me cringe and wish for the days of stone tablets?

I suppose that in the short term, until social media gives way to another cultural phase, I will continue to frame my life in random chunks of thought. This week’s snapshot, for instance? “Strawberry picking with my fellow crazy ladies. Laughter and freezer jam cure a multitude of ills.”

Pinning My Dreams

Recently, lulled by an hour of boredom on a windy afternoon, I gave in to peer pressure and created an account on Pinterest, the virtual bulletin board through which folks trade craft ideas, recipes, and dreams. I initially avoided the site because I abhor crafting. I peeked in the door because I needed a good hummus recipe. I pulled up a chair because I rediscovered dreaming.

I used to dream. Long ago and far away, in a small town in South Dakota, Daddy had an office in our basement. In that office, he created bookshelves out of cement blocks and long plywood boards. Yellow magazines lined those shelves, marching along in a most orderly fashion according to their publication date. For years, my parents subscribed to National Geographic Magazine, and they kept every edition. Every once in a while, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon, we would go on a trip.

"Where do you want to go today?" my parents would ask.
"Hmm...China sounds good," I would answer. Or maybe Alaska, or Egypt, Antarctica.

And off we went. We combed through indices for articles, gathered stacks of magazines, and began our journey, photograph by photograph.

Grand Tetons, Wyoming

We packed those yellow magazines in the back of a UHaul before long and drove off on a real adventure to the deep south. Two years later we moved again, then again. Eventually, we replaced the cement blocks with real bookshelves, the magazines with Google.

In the freedom of early adulthood, I lived a few of my dreams. After all, at nineteen or twenty-something, roadblocks cease to exist. I wanted to hike in the Grand Tetons, so on my day off one summer I stuck out my thumb and hitched a ride. I dreamed of Alaskan tundra, so I found a job and hopped on a plane. Later, I ached for fresh horizons and cozy New England villages with covered bridges and white steeples. This time, I packed my own UHaul and shared the dream with my young son.

Notre Dame Cathedral

That young son grew up, as did his brothers and sister. Our small apartment gave way to a house and piles of things. I built and buried a career.  Life happened. I reveled in Christmas snows, sobbed at petty betrayals, gloried in mountaintop views, but I forgot to dream of faraway places.

And then, I gave in to peer pressure and pulled out the thumbtacks. My "Recipes" bulletin board looked lonely, so I added "Favorite Books" and then "Favorite Places." The photos of dreams realized reminded me of dreams set aside--dreams of Norwegian fjords, European cathedrals and national parks still unvisited. It seems the more I give vision to my dreams, the more capacity I find to dream, and those dreams in turn bring the lightness of possibility to life here and now.

If you promise not to tell, I will confess a momentary gratitude for peer pressure and silly social media.

Living a Life of Passion

A college friend of mine pasted a peace symbol on the top of his mortar board at our graduation. I scoffed to myself at his attempt to borrow the trappings of a previous era to play the intellectual rebel. After all, we graduated on a sunny spring day in the late 1980s in northern Utah. The Vietnam War had ended long ago, and those of us outside of international politics hadn't begun to think about the Gulf War. Even the Cold War had begun its closing scenes. We were middle-class white kids on a college campus not exactly famous for a diverse population. We had little to protest.

I have gained a greater respect for my peace sign friend over the years. He was passionate. He believed firmly in justice. A respected photojournalist, he has spent his career giving form and color to the ideals he used to spout over a bottle of Chianti.  I wonder if I have succeeded as well in my own ideals.

I drew my first breath in Cache Valley, the rather idyllic little valley that also formed the backdrop for my college years (though life took me on a bit of a journey between infancy and freshman year). On the day I was born, far from my Rocky Mountains, the United States bombed Hanoi for the first time, two years after the Americans joined the ground war in Vietnam. Back in the States, Mohammad Ali officially announced that he would not submit to the draft. As he said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong…No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” Widespread war and race protests were just around the corner, and Ali’s stand helped feed the growing flames.

About the time I broke out into my first baby smile, my family moved to Eugene, Oregon so that my father could complete his doctorate. He studied romantic poets and drank in the protest movement then thriving on the University of Oregon campus. He, too, has lived a life of passion and ideals. As an educator, he championed the arts and highlighted regional history and culture. Privately, he addresses injustice one wounded soul at a time.

I think of my father's integrity in living according to his vision of the world as it should be. I think of my college friend and his peace sign, of Muhammad Ali and his stand against the war. All three live according to a driving force, and I admire that. To an extent, I tend to measure success by how people use their gifts and their life experiences to benefit others. By that measure, my parents rank among the most successful people I know. By that same measure, I fall short.

Now, having fallen short, I think it's time for me to fix my gaze upward and outward and start climbing.

Gardens of God

Sealing Room in Manti Temple

I spent a morning this week in the LDS temple in St. Louis. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, temple worship forms the pinnacle of our religious devotion. Like Solomon’s temple in ancient Israel, temples represent our finest workmanship, our most beautiful architecture. While pondering in the temple, I thought of joy and rejoicing, of beauty and God’s presence, of gardens, and of the tools of creation.

The Lord intends for us to live with joy and rejoicing. In fact, in 2 Nephi 2:25 (in the Book of Mormon) we read that “men are that they might have joy.” Through Isaiah, the Lord commands, “But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create.” (Isaiah 65:18)

To the end that we might experience this joy, the Lord created this earth and beautified it. He gave nature not just function but also form and beauty. God left a bit of Himself in the beauty of His creations. Through that beauty, we touch the divine, whether it is in the stretch of moonlight across a quiet lake or through the ethereal song of a wild bird.

Places of beauty figure prominently in the Lord’s plan for His children, with gardens forming the backdrop for pivotal events. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked and talked with God, enjoying His presence in their innocence. In Eden, He gave them the gift of agency, and they used that agency to set the Lord’s plan of salvation in motion.

Transgression made it necessary for Adam and Eve to leave the garden, and forever after humans have experienced the tension between garden and wilderness, between the peace of the Lord's presence and the weeds of everyday life. We learn our greatest lessons in the wilderness of our trials, and we grow stronger as we struggle to reach spaces of beauty and peace. The gardens pull us forward. The wilderness shapes us.

The Savior, Himself, atoned for our sins first in a garden. Though strengthened by His Father’s presence there, he bled from every pore as He struggled beneath the weight of the sins and pains of billions of his brothers and sisters. Then the Savior left the Garden of Gethsemane, only to suffer all that pain a second time in the foul air of Golgotha, for a time utterly alone. It was critical to the plan that He accomplish this part of the atonement outside of God’s presence.

Window at the Carmel of the Holy Trinity

Finally, as the early morning sun stretched over yet another garden, Jesus rose from the dead, bringing hope to a world languishing in darkness. A lovely stained glass window at the Carmel of the Holy Trinity in Spokane, Washington (right) depicts the scene outside the garden tomb. In fact, we owe much of our understanding of religion to the artists and composers who have brought the scriptures to life through the centuries.

Medieval theologians believed that light, as the first act of God's creation, represented the purest manifestation of divine presence. For hundreds of years, artisans have carefully crafted stained glass windows designed to bring that divine light into the worship services of churches throughout the world. Other artists bring beauty through music, dance, poetry, sculpture. Ordinary people live lives of beauty that inspire those around them.

When we create, particularly when we create beauty, we access the spark of God within us. We draw on inspiration and form a partnership with the Creator. At the same time, on those occasions when our creations approach true beauty, they provide a vehicle for the audience to step into the presence of God, if only for an instant.

AXIS Dance Company

Years ago, I sat in a dark theater on New Year's Eve, enjoying Burlington, Vermont's First Night celebration and ready to applaud any event that kept me out of the frigid New England air for a few minutes. The curtain opened, and I sat back in my chair, stunned. A group of dancers, some disabled and some not, kept me entranced for the next half an hour with one of the most profoundly moving dance performances I have ever experienced. Lines between traditional dancer and disabled dancer blurred. Fear and pain and stigma melted away, leaving just the aching beauty of the dance. No sellout performance of the New York City Ballet could have touched my soul more deeply.

I ponder my own opportunity to create moments of beauty for those around me. I no longer dance, and I never claimed any ability to bring canvas or stained glass to life. All the same, I can find my own tools, my own way to live a life of beauty. St. Francis of Assisi said simply, "God is beauty." I look to reach toward God, to build gardens in my life.

All in a Day's Work

I have spent the last few days working retail for minimum wage. At the mall, no less. Yes, the mall. That place I avoid like the plague. That hallmark of American capitalism scented with the ubiquitous odor of Abercrombie meets Yankee Candle meets Cinnabon. I hate to shop, and my days of stalking the cute boy in the music store have long past. Besides, malls remind me of so much of what I deplore in society: shelves stuffed with useless merchandise simply to provide the illusion of prosperity and give us the opportunity to make pointless choices, teenagers wasting time when the world offers so much more than they realize they can attain, food designed to plunge us further into the pit of obesity.

And yet...this has been a good week. Let's face it. A temporary job came when I needed the money. Until I figure out the magic formula for earning my living by my pen or land an interesting job that allows me to wrap my arms around my daughter when she skips down the school bus steps in the afternoon, the local economy offers me limited options. Besides, this retail job affords me time with a dear friend and coworker, and if it interrupts my usual exercise routine, at least the hours of loading boxes on a trailer keeps the muscles from atrophy.

I have had ample opportunity while counting inventory and loading boxes to ponder the difference in my life now from when I last worked for someone else over a decade ago. I note with some sense of surprise how guilty I feel about my soft life. I often deplore the lack of sufficient hours in the day. And yet, I find time to exercise for an hour or two every day. I nap occasionally (although, since I wake up each morning at 5 a.m. to teach a class, I feel less guilty about that). I spend hours at the computer researching and writing a book that I will never sell. Occasionally, not often enough, I snag an hour or two to read a novel. I never watch TV.

This week, when I come home from work wanting a chance to unwind and simply get off my feet for an hour, I hesitate before complaining to my husband, realizing more now than last month just how much he sacrifices his own time for the family. I remember how much I used to accomplish when I worked a demanding job and traveled frequently, yet still managed to teach early morning seminary and raise children and make dinner on a fairly regular basis. I fear my capacity to achieve has diminished.

I remind myself that Brad played the supporting role when I lived a corporate life, making my full schedule a possibility. I think of the stress that full schedule caused and the peace that gradually set in when I traded the dayplanner for a more sedate life at home. I see the value in developing my creative side and providing an anchor for the family. Still, as I finish up my week as a mall rat, I tender a moment of gratitude for the reminder of the rare blessing it has been to raise my children and find myself over these past 13 years. I renew my appreciation for my husband. And I savor more than ever a "soft" life that may not last much longer.