Pausing in Bethany

Bethany (from historyfish.net)

Every spring, much of the Christian world celebrates Passion Week, commemorating the events of each day in the last week of the Savior's life. Regarding one day in that week, we know almost nothing. Two days before his death, Jesus returned to the village of Bethany, and for a whole day the scriptures fall silent. We can assume with some confidence that He spent that day quietly with his close friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. With them, as with almost no one else, Jesus could relax, could find solace, could step aside from the world that clamored either for His healing touch or for His blood.

In the midst of events of eternal significance, Jesus more than once paused in Bethany. He ate dinner with friends. We know He wept with them. I like to think He laughed with them, as well, and perhaps told stories of His travels or listened to their thoughts and dreams. They served each other, walked together, almost certainly enjoyed moments of peaceful, companionable silence.

Recently, I spent a weekend getaway with three friends. While we hardly save the world, we do each lead lives of eternal significance. We build marriages, raise children or siblings, heal bodies and spirits, teach youth, create. Sometimes we feel the weight of our worlds resting heavily on our shoulders, and sometimes we feel tiny and insignificant.

The weekend passed comfortably, easily, like slipping into a favorite pair of pajamas and sipping a cup of hot chocolate on a lazy afternoon. Our hostess possesses an uncanny ability to create a sense of peace with carefully arranged furniture and art, and that peace pervaded the hours. We made meals together, chatting over the kitchen counter while we ate. We lounged on the sofa and laughed about our lives. We played at the park like my daughter and her friends (though without the cartwheels), browsed through local art stores, took silly photos, basked in moments of silence, and even played with makeup. We did nothing worthy of note to anyone but ourselves, and we ignored schedules.

I returned home rejuvenated, grateful for my life and grateful, as well, for the friendships that ground me and add color and depth to that life. Because sometimes, pausing in Bethany carries its own eternal significance.

Side by Side

My children turn 7, 13, 18, and 23 this year. The youngest lost her third tooth last week. Son #3 recently gained bragging rights as the tallest family member living at home. Son #2 might suffer an ego blast at the need to look up to his younger brother, except for the fact that, like many teenage boys on the brink of adulthood, he is immortal, invincible and untouchable. Meanwhile, I continue to marvel at the fact that while I was distracted by football games and report cards, Son #1 grew into a man. This year I will exactly double his age, and that milestone has me glancing backward at my own life, setting it side by side with the lives of my children.

Juliana in 1st grade

Kristina in 1st grade

At seven, like Kristina, I looked forward to the end of first grade and the beginning of another glorious summer. It was 1974, and I attended Stewart Elementary School in Yankton, South Dakota. Every schoolday morning I walked down the alley behind our house to the school. It was a 5-minute walk, and back in the old days I made that 5-minute walk again at noon to go home for lunch--except on taco days. I loved the greasy, hardshell tacos, just as I loved playing on the bars at recess or those wonderful days when the P.E. teacher brought out the parachute and we made a "mushroom" or played popcorn with gym balls. On Sundays we attended church in a rented chapel in one of the buildings on the Yankton College campus. It was at church that I met my best friend of that period, Jenny West. She lived a half hour away, in Vermilion, but church formed the centerpiece of our lives and besides, our mothers were friends. With my neighborhood friends, I organized clubs in the schoolyard or played across the street from my house at Fantle Memorial Park. We climbed trees and played make believe for hours on end. All the while, I looked up to my older sister. She seemed impossibly grown up, finishing her first year of middle school and playing violin. While Daddy taught English at the college, Mother taught piano lessons in our living room, and I drove her crazy trying to chat with her students. I think of that now when Kristina interrupts my own music lessons.

Jared in 7th grade

Juliana in 7th grade

By the time I turned 13, we had left the Midwest and traveled south. Like Jared, I enjoyed seventh grade. With the other kids in my suburban neighborhood, I boarded a bus every morning to travel downtown to Capitol Heights Junior High, an imposing three-story school with considerably more diversity than the early days up north in South Dakota. We had lived in Montgomery, Alabama for nearly two years by then, and I loved my time there. I lived and breathed ballet that year (1980), dancing with the Montgomery Civic Ballet. It was my second year with the company, and I began to land some good roles. Outside of the studio, I had good friends in the neighborhood and at school, but my lasting memories are those of my best friends: Miriam Henderson and Cathy Brett. We took turns hosting sleepovers, made sugar muffins and flour tortillas, worked on Young Women's projects together at church, played in the ditch behind my house, rode our bikes on the paths through the woods, giggled about our sisters' dates and checked out the cute boys at the Friday evening baseball games down the street. Rather to our surprise, the end of seventh grade brought an end to the trio, as I moved to Kentucky, and Cathy abruptly moved to California within a week of each other. Fortunately, we have connected periodically through the decades since then, and I still count those two among my short list of lifelong friends.

Alec as a senior

Juliana as a senior

Another five years took me from Montgomery to Frankfort, Kentucky and on to Mesa, Arizona. Looking back on the spring of 1985, I can empathize with Alec's current case of senioritis. Like Alec, I took a mid-winter trip to Utah State to check out campus and came home energized about the excitement of college life. Like Alec, I tried to keep my mind sufficiently focused to prepare for Advanced Placement exams. Dates with college boys distracted my focus, as did my plans to leave home as soon as the ink dried on my diploma. I loved the opportunities available to me in a metropolitan area, but I hated the desert. I had secured a summer job near Yellowstone National Park and could not wait to head to the mountains and live on my own. In the meantime, I enjoyed the chance to see my cousins in the halls of Mountain View High School, and I worked with a great group of kids on the LDS Seminary Council. I spent occasional afternoons pretending elegance in the ritzy stores and cafes in Scotsdale, and I relaxed in the pine woods near my grandparents' cabin up in Strawberry. I owned life, and everything felt possible.

Devin

Juliana and Devin 1990

As the late 1980s flew by, I grew up (a bit), graduated from college and settled into the beginnings of a career and married life. Like Devin, at 23 I began to see glimpses of what I might make of a life that, up to that point, had mostly provided me time and space for adventure. I worked as a technical writer for a small software company in Logan, my first real job. We lived in a mobile home in the married student trailer park, and Brady tried valiantly to attend school, although the after-effects of a brain tumor and two brain surgeries impeded that process. That August, I gave birth to my firstborn.  When I returned to work a few weeks later, Brady and I tag-teamed the parenting duties. Devin was a nearly perfect baby, as all first babies should be, and I confidently planned out the next decade in my head. I would work while Brady finished college. We would move to some beautiful suburb and raise a beautiful family. I would teach Sunday School, earn accolades in graduate school, publish something besides computer manuals. Oh, how God must have chuckled at my feeble attempts to plan! And yet...for all of its twists and turns, God's version of my life has given me such magic and memories.

Resting Between Sets

I have spent my life with my eyes fixed on one goal or another, checking items off a myriad of lists line by line along the way. Those checks help me round out my sense of self, and the lure of unknown wonders around the next bend pulls me forward. I earned a degree, built a career or two, completed projects, lost the baby weight (finally), hiked mountains and conquered fears. Ah, but those milestones on the road to wonderful feel good!

Every once in a while, my current crop of goals grows stale. Life moves on to the next phase, and I find I require a new rhythm, new purpose. I study, ponder, try to match my heartbeat with the divine. Such was the case last fall, and over a few months I reached some surprising conclusions. Step back. Read. Breathe. Live in the present. Learn to radiate joy. And the hard one: defy logic and set aside the lofty goals for a time.

I embraced the plan initially. Learning to find joy, to accept life without the constant fight to make it fit my plan, felt incredibly liberating.

And then I stepped out of a rare mid-day bubble bath one afternoon and looked in the mirror in a moment of hormone-inspired introspective clarity. (Women, you know those moments.) "What a load of hooey!" I thought (in roughly those terms). "I have simply lowered my expectations of myself, of life. I have given up in defeat, thrown away the dream. I have become the lazy servant with his talent buried firmly in the sand." The thought pattern continued on with a fair amount of ranting and raving and glum expression, but that's pretty much the general theme. A quiet voice in a far corner of my brain reminded me that I had arrived at this path deliberately and under inspiration, but louder arguments drowned it out.

Winnie the Pooh has his favorite "Thotful Spot," a place made for "deciding what to do today." I have my own favorite thoughtful spots, and after a day of ranting and wallowing, I went to one of them. My mind wandered to one of my recurring goals that has impacted my life significantly over the past decade. I exercise religiously, and several days each week my regimen involves weight training. I love feeling strong, and I love the curve of a solid muscle. I thought about how those muscles grow. In simple terms, under the stress of pushing weight, the muscle tissue breaks down. It is in the recovery period (the rest in between sets, the good night of sleep) that the muscle rebuilds and grows.

Uncomfortable as it is to learn to define myself without the measuring stick of goals and accomplishments, this time of recovery is critical, and it will not last. This is a time to build strength and patience, to gather wisdom and grow faith. This is a time to hone insights, to cement good physical and spiritual habits, to nurture relationships. I still have a work to do, mountains to climb, loads to carry. Soon it will be time for the next set of reps, and I will need all of that strength and faith and insight when the time comes. For now, I will breathe, read, smile...and grow.

St. Louis Celebration

Brad at the Jewel Box, Forest Park

Just about 19 years ago, Brad and I drove to Washington, D.C. (or, more accurately, the LDS temple in Kensington, Maryland) to celebrate our marriage with our families and some close friends. We have all added a few wrinkles since that January day. We have also added a few children, a few addresses, a few jobs, a dog, hundreds of sunrises and sunsets, a little rain, and a few spectacular storms.

Butterfly House

In honor of all those years of more sunshine than storm, we decided to run away to St. Louis for the day. After all, we have lived in central Illinois for nearly four years now, and we have never explored what turns out to be a surprisingly charming city. The weather gods blessed us with a January thaw and sun. Consequently, after waving the kids off to school, we jumped in the car and headed south.

We intended to start our adventure at the Butterfly House in Chesterfield but arrived to find the site closed for the month. Feeling quite mellow and adaptable, we shrugged our shoulders, took a picture of a huge stone butterfly, and moved on to downtown St. Louis. More about butterflies next summer...

Mosaic detail

Next stop: the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, with 83,000 square feet of mosaic art created by twenty artists out of 41.5 million tesserae. (Yeah, I had to look that one up. Tesserae are the little squares of stone or glass that go into a mosaic.) Mosaic covers every bit of the massive ceilings and much of the walls, depicting Biblical scenes in the rich tones of over 8000 colors. The beauty of the scene certainly inspires awe, if not worship.

And awe inspires...hunger, apparently. Fortunately, the Cathedral Basilica lies in the heart of the upscale Central West End, close to the trendy restaurants and shops of Euclid Avenue. Hoping to infuse a bit of health into our day of play, we stopped in at OR Smoothie and Cafe for a lunch of organic, vegan yumminess, topped off with a couple of signature smoothies. I confess to stopping for a chocolate filled croissant when our after lunch stroll took us past the St. Louis Bread Company, but the guilt feelings faded quickly as the chocolate oozed over my fingers.

The Jewel Box in Forest Park

Pleasantly full, we turned our attention to nearby Forest Park. As we wound our way through the park, we stopped first at the Jewel Box, a charming Art Deco floral conservancy characterized by its unique cantilevered glass walls. The greenhouse is a popular wedding spot, and even without the colorful gardens that surround the building in warmer seasons, it offers a lovely retreat from city life. We had the flowers to ourselves for a few minutes, and we drank in the rich air of the lush indoor garden.

Little Dancer of 14 Years (Edgar Degas)

After a few turns of the park road, we passed by the St. Louis Zoo (packed with families enjoying a rare warm day in January) and drove up to the Art Museum. Through the feature exhibit, we watched the evolution of the masterpieces of Federico Barocci, then wandered through galleries of Impressionist, Realist, Asian and African art. I finally learned why in the world so many talented artists waste their time painting fruit, and I stood nose to nose with one of Degas' dancers. (The girl had an attitude! My kind of girl...) I even discovered a new addition to my list of favorite paintings: John Martin's "Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion." Art does good things for the soul.

We wound down with a little window shopping in Richmond Heights and stuffed ourselves with a late dinner at Maggianos Little Italy. Good conversation carried us home, and I crawled happily into bed just after midnight. What a glorious day!

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.