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!

Warm Bread, Stolen Cookies, and Other Life Essentials

I have come to the conclusion that there must be a link between the stomach and the pen. Christopher Kimball, editor of Cooks Illustrated magazine, quickly rose to the top of my list of favorite essayists last year. Now, I find myself reading, quite by chance, a memoir of Ruth Reichl, the editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine up until its unexpected demise in 2009. Just a few chapters in, I am captivated by Ruth's rich stories (which she readily admits to embellishing, according to the time-honored tradition of her rather eccentric family). Ostensibly about her process of maturing into a full-blown foodie, the memoir reveals a rich understanding of the complexities and humor of human nature. Incidentally, it also includes a host of delicious recipes.

I suppose it makes sense, really, that foodies should have the ability to reach right to the heart of things. After all, isn't food the way to a man's heart? Don't we eat "soul food" and "comfort food"? Food provides a nostalgic link to our past and a hopeful path to our future, as in the cases of dieting or preparing a special meal for someone we desire to impress. We reward and punish with food. We eat or refuse to eat as a form of signalling confederacy or protest. Food figures prominently in our rituals and ceremonies, in our ethnic identity and our social gatherings. What, how, when, and with whom we eat offers a glimpse into our socio-economic status. And, in the end, we simply cannot survive without food.

My daughter had a birthday recently, her fifth. When I asked her for her birthday dinner menu, she responded with "bread and water for everyone...oh, and cake with ice cream." We did, indeed have bread for her birthday dinner: Portuguese sweet bread, fresh out of the oven and slathered with butter and either creamed honey or strawberry freezer jam. The sheer, glorious decadence of the thick slices of fragrant homemade bread differed rather sharply from the crust of bread and water we associate with prison food or even the unleavened bread the Savior portioned to his apostles at the Last Supper (although my daughter does regularly break her bread into small "sacrament" pieces). Isn't it odd how one simple menu can show such vastly different faces?

Though not quite as austere as a bread and water diet, I celebrated my move to Vermont some years ago by going vegetarian for a time. With its love of all things hippie and with a host of animal-friendly options, Vermont makes vegetarianism easy. For me, eating vegetables symbolized embracing my new life and complemented the process of healing after a long period of intense stress. Even the process of chopping copious quantities of squash and carrots for my favorite vegetarian chili grounded me, and the spicy scent of dinner simmering on the stove turned my small apartment into a home.

For many of us, in fact, food and home are practically synonymous. We taste a meatloaf just like Mom used to make or enjoy the liberty of refusing carrot and raisin salad even while fondly envisioning that very salad in its penguin bowl on our childhood dinner table. Like many families, my family builds traditions around special foods: Christmas lobster followed by steak with Bearnaise sauce (Dad makes the lobster and Mom makes the Bearnaise sauce), Irma's Kahlua cake for most birthdays, Devin's coffeecake for a Saturday morning treat, oatmeal bread dripping with swirled cinnamon for our friend Pat, pork fried rice in honor of Grandpa Larsen.

Another family tradition hearkens back to my college summer at a fishing resort on Alaska's Lake Iliamna. The lodge chef kept dozens of special recipe chocolate chip cookies in the walk in freezer. The cookies made up part of the sack lunches for our guests to eat creekside, and employees were strictly forbidden to partake. Of course, we had strict orders against any number of temptations, and we felt unduly persecuted. Consequently, most of us gained a substantial number of pounds on stolen chocolate chip cookies. A laughing chef sent us home with the secret recipe at the end of the summer, and I have made the cookies for the past 20 years.

About the time I began and ended my life of cookie crime, Jeff Henderson decided to spend a portion of his prison sentence working in the kitchen. Incarcerated for drug dealing, he found a passion for cooking that carried him to executive chef positions in Las Vegas, a best-selling memoir, and a chance to give back. I find his story fascinating enough to recommend it (try this NPR interview and this ABC News story for starters). And I echo his philosophy that "food is a celebration of life, . . .that every recipe, every dish has a story behind it." I look forward to finding those stories, one spoonful at a time.

And the Not So Blissful Moments...

I remember the exact point at which I stopped watching the movie Schindler's List. By all accounts, the movie is a masterpiece and the story gripping, but I could not watch it. I have a vague memory, perhaps faulty, of a scene of soldiers moving through the ghetto, spreading violence and fear in their path. Desperate for her child's life, a mother tosses her baby out a window. . .to a waiting soldier who impales the infant on the point of his bayonet. Whenever I need to feel my insides curl into a tight little ball, I remember that scene.

Some time ago, I wrote about bliss moments, scenes etched in my memory because they evoke warm and cozy feelings. I hold quite a store of bliss moments. In another corner of my brain, etched just as powerfully, I have a store of anti-bliss moments, memories of times that stopped a smile dead in its tracks. This set of memories occupies a much smaller and less accessible portion of my psyche, and yet I hold on to these ragged images, feeling somehow that they, too, have something to offer me.

Oddly, outside of movies or novels, scenes of death and classic tragedy rarely figure on my anti-bliss list. Instead, my unhappy moments often tend toward the much more prosaic--flashing lights in my rear view mirror, for instance. In fact, just last week I had to dig into the bottom of my purse and smooth out a badly crumpled traffic ticket before sending it to the court clerk. I confess that I behaved rather badly when the conscientious police officer delivered the ticket, and I let loose a torrent of tears and objectionable vocabulary once he had moved on to his next victim. For days, I could not even talk about the ticket, responding in stony silence to my family's teasing.

Even now, my calm restored, I cannot quite articulate why a simple traffic stop sparked such an intense response. I think perhaps my overactive need for perfection balks at such a blatant reminder of my too human nature.

A rather prominent shelf in my anti-bliss storage closet holds memories of interpersonal conflict, not because I court contention but because those moments bother me more than almost anything else. On the simple end are moments such as the time I unwittingly cut off another driver headed for the same parking spot. Furious, the other driver flashed the international sign of contempt and yelled something rather unintelligible. In my surprise and hurt (I was 20, mind you, and rather naive) I attempted to respond in like manner, but I was shaking too badly to figure out which finger should point to the blue skies above. The incident bothered me for hours, which strikes me now as quite silly. Years later, I discovered that responding with a smile and a wave has the advantage of both disarming my opponent and reducing my own blood pressure quite handily. Beautiful discovery, that.

Less humorous and more striking are those times when discord settles on my doorstep, when misunderstandings wedge their way between me and one of those I love most dearly. When contention comes home, when I perceive a threat to bonds I hold eternal and lack the power or knowledge required to sew up the wound, those are the times I long to inflict on myself some sort of pain to distract me from hurt I cannot either understand or control. Fortunately, those moments occur rarely, and I have learned better how to cope when they do slide under the door.

Happily, I can bring forward few memories that travel beyond the mundane and almost no lingering angst from feeling offended. Whether I lead a charmed life, or whether my naivete simply leaves me blind to offenses, I couldn't say. I do find it intriguing that I seem to fear conflict, embarrassment, and loss of control above just about anything else.

I hope I never have the opportunity to feel the desperation of the Jewish mother in Schindler's List. I hope that I have taught my children to learn from their struggles and to store up blissful moments to give them strength in the darkness. And I hope that my own memory of pain will help me to grow in beautiful ways.

Mountains and Valleys

"I have descended from a planet called grief," says the Count of Monte Cristo, explaining the source of his almost superhuman wisdom. "He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die. . . that we may appreciate the enjoyment of living."

While some view the count as almost godlike, this man who dares to manipulate fate falls into the oh so human error of prescribing his own medicine to others. The grief that Edmond Dantes suffered for 14 years in prison, the grief that took away everything dear to him and brought him to the point of suicide, finally ennobled him until he emerged as the supernally wise and unfathomably wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. He plays God--or perhaps the antithesis thereof--arranging the lives of those he hates and those he loves so that they, too, can experience the destructive or ennobling power of grief.

While I cannot bring myself to complete agreement with the count's philosophy and the liberties he takes in applying it in the lives of others, I do recognize the power of pain in my own life. Just as I relish the energizing feeling of completing a taxing workout, I love the empowerment of having passed through adversity. When I finish a good run, the blood pumps through my veins. My skin tingles, I breathe more deeply, and even my mind feels cleansed and sharpened. Similarly, looking back on a time of trial I sense a new strength, unforeseen insights, more faith in the possibilities of the future. I feel alive.

In college, after a year of grappling with the frustrating fallout of silly teenage highs and lows, I decided to teach myself to shut off those annoying emotional reactions. Who really needs to ache over boys, anyway? I succeeded frighteningly well, and for a few months I enjoyed a respite from tears and heart hiccups. After a time, however, I began to miss the chance to cry my soul clean. I needed a searing ache to wipe away the sludge of leftover worries and nagging doubts. In locking tight the fear and the sorrow, I had also stifled the belly laughs and the astonishing awe of simple bliss. I craved the heights and depths and longed to explore my own boundaries again.

Over time, life reminded me how to double over in pain and gasp in delight. At first I borrowed from the experiences of others: imagining the depths of a mother's sorrow in losing her son to cancer or marveling at a friend's willingness to give herself over to the joyful awkwardness of falling in love. I even determined, with some reluctance, that God gave women hormones for the very purpose of regularly reminding us how to feel.

I love the ability to abandon myself to laughter or tears, knowing from experience that I will eventually regain even ground. I love the cleansing and strengthening power that comes from enduring the depths and pushing the heavy weight. I cherish the gift of empathy that comes only with experience. I cannot say that I crave pain or ask for trials, but I fear them a little less now than I used to. In the words of our dear Count of Monte Cristo, "All human wisdom is summed up in these two words, 'Wait and hope.'"

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

Years ago I heard someone say that at some point in her life, every woman is the most beautiful woman in the world. I think of that quote periodically as I gaze on humanity around me, and occasionally I have the wonderful opportunity to glimpse some of those "most beautiful woman in the world" moments.

Just last week, for instance, I sat chatting comfortably with a friend in her living room. As usually happens, our conversation meandered from God to pets to our own insecurities and on to those people who have influenced our life in significant ways. My friend does not consider herself beautiful. In fact, she isolates herself somewhat with the worry that her physical struggles will make others uncomfortable. Yet as she spoke of her mother, of their closeness and of the legacy of faith her mother left behind, tears wet her cheeks and a singular beauty stole over her countenance. I wish she could have seen herself at that moment.

Back in Vermont, I served in a presidency with my friend Jen, a woman who prefers to stride through life with her tough side turned out. I used to love watching the transformation she periodically exhibited (quite against her will, I think) in our meetings. With Jen, one can read the mood of the day by her clothing. Black does not signal joviality. On one particular day, I walked into the room to find my friend dressed in black, dark eye shadow to match the decided frown on her lips, arms folded and a personal bubble the size of Texas radiating out from her glare. We began the meeting with our usual prayer and proceeded to discuss the needs of the women under our care. I stole a glance at Jen now and then. Soon, she began to melt. The face relaxed, the bubble began to recede just a smidge, the arms dropped, and she leaned forward almost imperceptibly. Cursed with a high sense of duty and a heart far too big for her own comfort, Jen cannot long resist a peaceful spirit. The melting ice revealed a beautiful woman.

My friend Trisha also suffers the curse of a high sense of duty. With a large family and stewardship over hundreds of women, she gracefully carries the weight of responsibility, yet feels the stress of gifting out her time and energy in pieces to the hefty demands of each day. The other day, however, I noticed something different about her. She seemed lighter, at peace, more whole. A weekend with the girls, away from all the "shoulds" of her daily life, had generated a spa effect. Always lovely, just then she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

I think of other beautiful woman moments I have witnessed. My mother laughs freely with her granddaughter, their bond unmistakable. My young voice student finishes her first recital, the thrill of the moment in decided contrast to her original terror at the thought of performing in public. Filled with inspiration, Jennie teaches a Sunday lesson to the young women she has served with love, her whole countenance shining with her conviction of their potential.

Gabriela Mistral, the Chilean poet, said once, "Love beauty; it is the shadow of God on the universe." I find the search for those shadows infuses my life with divine moments.

Of Knights in Shining Armor and Such

My husband and I have an anniversary tomorrow, our 17th. I have been thinking lately about those things that have kept me happily married over the years. All too often, I take my husband for granted. And then sometimes a chance conversation with a friend reminds me how unusually blessed I am in this stubborn New Englander that I married.

17 years ago, Brad was a 21-year old sometime college student, living at home and working nightshift at IBM. I was older, a widow, a single mom, and a professional. Logic would never envision us together, but then, logic hardly has a corner on wonderful, does it? We went target shooting on our first date, paused to watch the sunset over Lake Champlain, then struggled to find a late-night dinner that would fit into my vegetarian lifestyle. I never intended to date him again, but I had not taken into account the Wallace charm. From guns to reggae to Hill Cumorah to Mozart, somehow I fell in love without intending to.

I celebrate my anniversary tomorrow because not only do I love my husband, but I rather like him, as well. After all these years, we still find ourselves talking for hours without struggling for words. I seek his advice, and often I even follow that advice.When laughter sends tears down my cheeks, or the sunrise dazzles the frost-covered trees along the road, I hurry to share the moment with Brad. Years ago, on vacation in Maine and sleeping peacefully, I felt a tap on my shoulder. The tide had come in, and Brad wanted to share it with me. We dangled our feet off the wall outside our hotel, listening to the waves. Those are moments to cherish, worth far more than Kay Jewelers will ever comprehend.

I celebrate another anniversary also precisely because of the painful times, those episodes that have periodically left us staring helplessly at a widening gulf between us. Years ago, in corporate life, I sat in a customer service seminar and learned an important truth. A company's most loyal customers are generally not those who have never had an issue with the product, but rather those who have experienced significant issues and the successful resolution of those issues. I can tell you without hesitation that the same truth applies to marriage. Late nights have found us immersed in deeply painful conversation, wounded by life or by each other, mists clouding the vision of eternity that should inspire us on. Sometimes we claw our way to the other side of the gulf, fingerhold by fingerhold. Sometimes we stumble on a miraculous bridge. But always, eventually, we find ourselves standing hand in hand on the far side of the impasse, a little bruised but stronger.

Brad forgives me. He inspires me, pushes me upward, expands my soul. He loves me at my most unlovable moments and believes I am beautiful. He honors me with honesty and gracefully accepts my honesty in return. He massages my feet even though he would rather not and stays up late at night so that I can wake up to a sparkling kitchen. He jumped into fatherhood without complaint, loving my son as his own. He is the champion of our children, even when they don't realize it, and my own safe haven when the storms swirl.

Simply put: I love my husband. Happy Anniversary!

Blatant Nostalgia Trip

I'm listening to Bonnie Raitt and lapsing into nostalgia this afternoon. I remember clearly the first time I heard one of her songs. It was early evening on August 12, 1992. Chris and I were driving up to Bear Lake for a raspberry milkshake, talking a little but mostly breathing and listening. I began to relax for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Still, I felt like an awkward teenager after a makeover, not sure quite what to make of the new self emerging, aware that others reacted differently to me now and unsure how to react to myself.

My parents and I argued on my return, Dad worrying about me joyriding with a married guy friend just hours after my husband's funeral. I don't imagine they realize, even now, how essential that evening was for me (and how innocent). Chris and I had always connected deeply and uniquely. I needed that instinctive connection just then--no explanations or discussion, just the permission to simply exist. I suppose I probably even needed the hint of rebellion and the release that came with the argument at home.

A few weeks later I packed my pickup truck and moved cross country to Vermont. As a parting gift, Sue gave me Bonnie's "Nick of Time" album for the drive. That album became a link to my past and the anthem of my rebirth. Even now, it transports me back to Saturday afternoons on Burlington's Church Street, my toddler son turning heads with his blond curls and hip sunglasses. Inspired by his delight, perhaps, I felt myself growing younger with the passing seasons. Months of caring for a terminally ill husband had aged me by decades.  Now I felt the years falling away. I explored my new territory, fascinated both with the charm of Vermont and with the adjustments in my emotional landscape.

I loved those early years in Vermont--the fog over Lake Champlain on my way to work, the silliness of somersaulting into snowdrifts, my son singing behind me on the bike, the thrill of falling in love quite unexpectedly. Bonnie Raitt and rich New England air worked their magic on me, healing and rejuvenating, filling me to the brim with life. Even now, listening and remembering, I breathe a little more deeply and feel new.