Writing my blessings on the wall

I went to Seattle yesterday, the Left Coast, and I was away from my bucolic little town and my happy little family for 20 hours.  It was too long.  When we moved here, I immediately loved our new town, new ward, new friends, new house, new and different life.  But it took awhile for the slower pace, the peace and calm and family world to sink in and change me.  I am now fully converted to my small town life and it was a jarring, shocking, painful reality to be back in the world I once thought I was made for and would miss.  I was all business there.  I was on the ladder and I was climbing.  We left in part because my wise husband knew that the politics, the work-focused life, the frenetic pace, the competition - it was toxic, particularly to me, because I thrived so well in it.  I could not see how disconnected I was from being a mother and a wife.  I thought I was one of those women who is "not cut out" to be a SAHM.  Now, I work from home and that is a blessing that I cannot be grateful enough to have, but I wish I could have it all.  And having it all means something very different to me now.  I wish with all my heart that I did not have to turn on the computer every morning and tap back into that other world where my value is measured in IQ points.  I wish with all my heart that my kids reaped the benefits of all the talent and capacity that make me so valued in the working world.  I wish that I gave the best and the most of my energy to the job that is mine by divine design.

Looking back over the day, I can see that I did not fail either world; I kept my standards, and I did a good job.  Yet this morning I feel injured and afraid.  I want to just sit with my children and hold them.  I want to spend an hour with my husband holding me, reminding me that I am still the person I have become, and that my brush with that other world has not turned me back into the person I was.

I am grateful now more than ever that I am able to strike something of a balance.  This life is not exactly as I want it to be, but I know that the Lord is not unaware in the least degree of our circumstances.  Perhaps if I was not divided between both worlds I would not appreciate how truly blessed I am that most of my life is spent in the life I want.  Opposition in all things, right?  I once visited a dear and sweet 90-something woman in the hospital.  She said that between visitors, she would lie in her bed, and with her finger in the air, write her blessings on the blank wall in front of her.  For the rest of my life, I believe that the best phrasing I can devise for the feeling I have right now is, "sitting in the hospital, writing my blessings on the wall".

God bless you, every one.

Sisters

I wasn't prepared for the show the audience puts on.  I had forgotten that people use public events as an opportunity to put on their finery and to watch and be watched.  To judge and be judged.  The girls wore skinny jeans or daisy dukes and a tank top, or a dress.  They wore high heels or flip-flops or cute little slippers.  I looked at their faces as they paraded by, confidently and strutting, or meekly and mincing, and I saw that every one had a beautiful face.  Some more beautiful than others, but all possessed of some delicacy, some turn of feature, that made them a pleasure to look at.  And I wondered, as I often do, how it is that they have overlooked their beautiful faces, and think it necessary to uncover their bodies.  One girl walked by and I stared at her clean and pretty face, ignoring her immodesty, and as she passed, she gave me the up and down that said I was beneath her and no competition.  I had forgotten to compete.  I had forgotten that girls measure each other constantly, gauging their beauty against each other, gauging their value by how skinny they are, or how perfect their smile.  I had forgotten that it is an effort to join together as sisters and to put aside our rivalries, even when the contest is won, and we wear a man at our side.

I want more than this.  I know that we are better than this.  I have seen women engaged in powerful, if small, acts of service and I know that there is a way of being women together that is beyond the catty and spiteful and into the divine.  Let us be sisters together, and no more rivals and enemies.  Let us encourage each other, and lift each other up.  Let us not judge each other, by whatever standard.  I am reminded of the hymn "in the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see, who am I to judge another, Lord, I would follow thee".  We can be powerful in doing good together, let us not be weak in tearing each other down. 

Humbled

I have been in the whirlwind.  The devil has sent forth his mighty winds, yea his shafts in the whirlwind, his hail and mighty storm and I have remembered my foundation, the rock upon which I have built, which is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  A foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.  I kept running into the wall in my mind - I knew that my testimony was not in danger, my testimony is solidly built upon the Savior and I do not waver in it.  Yet, I could not resolve in my mind that I should feel so rudderless, so unfounded, so desperate, and not waver in my testimony.  How could I feel this way if I have such confidence in the power of the Atonement to heal, to strengthen, to make clean?  And this morning I have my answer - I have lacked faith.  I have neglected to repent for my pettiness, my pride, my lack of compassion.  And these sins and weaknesses have stood in my way, they have blocked the comfort of the Spirit and the blessings of the Lord through humble prayer, obedience, even the comfort of offering service has been withheld.  I am reminded of my humility before the Lord God.  Reminded that I am small and weak of myself, easily beset by temptation, and powerless in the face of it - except for the power of a loving Heavenly Father, through the Atonement of His Son, to bless His children.  To bless me to be more than I am.  To bless me to be patient, long-suffering, meek, loving, gentle, faithful...to bless me to be more like the Savior.  As I acknowledge my weakness before Him, I am made strong.  As I exercise my faith to repent, to rely on His loving mercy, my faith is strengthened.  One eternal round.  I rejoice in the glory of the Lord my God, and His magnificent power to make me better and more than I am of myself.  Truly, I offer these thoughts in worship and praise to my God.  These small and inadequate thoughts, these small and inadequate words, my small testimony, I offer to Him these small things, and know that He accepts them from my honest, if imperfect heart.  What measure can there be that will show His greatness above me?  I don't have words to explain what I have seen this morning, except to say that I am deeply humbled before my God, and I can only be grateful to Him to see myself so clearly, to understand how profoundly I need Him. 

Hiding under a rock

When I was in 8th grade, I was singled out, with a boy named Jarett Conner, for a separate vocabulary list than the rest of the class. They worked on "status" and "fundamental" and we worked on "cogent" and "enervate". Jarett was a football player, tall, good-looking, and way out of my league. Under normal circumstances, I would have only endured his ignoring me, or suffered his taunting, but because of the time we spent alone in the hall together, practicing our vocabulary, we grew to be something like friends, if only in secret. Somehow a habit developed that when we would watch a movie in class, Jarett and I would play footsie under my chair (he sat behind me) and sometimes he would put his hands on my shoulders. One day a pair of girls who sat two rows over, blond, perfect, and inseparable, saw our indiscretions in the dark and after class, rushed out to tell the rest of the popular crowd. As I walked down the hallway at lunch, Rachel Mackenzie spotted me and yelled "There she is!". Kids poured out of the lunchroom - it looked like the whole 7th and 8th grade to me, though the group probably numbered 15 or so. And with tall Rachel standing at the front, they all stood and pointed their fingers at me, laughing, ridiculing my audacity at imagining that Jarett Conner could possibly want anything to do with me. I ran away, outside, and hid until lunch was over. I went home and told my aunt what had happened. She said "everyone puts their pants on the same way, one leg at a time". Her words were less than comfortless, they made me feel guilty that I cared at all what they said. Days later, Jarett maneuvered to stand behind me in the line-up to leave class and put his arms around me and whispered in my ear that he was sorry.

My humiliation utterly public, and his penance, my penance, utterly private, I was made to feel that not only was I not accepted by my peers, I was not a worthy human being, I did not deserve to exist. This scene is one that I vividly remember, but that experience and those feelings were common to many of my interactions throughout my school years. In the last couple of weeks, I have felt that way again, though not for any reason that I can discern. It is such a profound feeling of shame at my own humanity and imperfection, my inability to say or do anything just right, my suspicion that I am harshly judged by others, that I have described it to my husband as wanting to hide under a rock. But I am not a faithless child anymore and I recognize that these feelings are not a reflection of my actual worth or the actual perception that others have of me. I wondered briefly if these feelings are an effort by Heavenly Father to humble me, a chastisement for pride, but the chastisement of the Lord always comes with the comfort of the Spirit ("reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him who thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy" D&C 121:43) and this feeling comes with no comfort at all. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and that I am of value to Him and to others. I console myself with these thoughts and I do not hide in the corner or crawl under a rock. I stand up under the weight of these feelings and I continue to push out of the relative safety of my silence. I try to remember to thank people for their kindnesses and to acknowledge their service. I try to find ways to serve others, even if all I can manage is to smile at them. My house is a mess, I say and do stupid things, my kids sometimes misbehave - I am entirely human, fallible, and imperfect, but I am a Daughter of God and I put my faith in whatever portion of my heritage is Divine.  And I press forward, knowing that eventually the adversary's grasp will loosen and I will feel less alone, less worthless, and much more like a city that is set on a hill, than a creature that should hide under a rock.

I end this passage in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, because I know that only His part in the plan of salvation makes my faith possible.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

everyday and eternity

I had a profound experience yesterday.  So profound that I am still spun today, still out of sorts, still not myself...yet it happens every day, all over the world.  Eventually, it happens to every single person, without exception.  I didn't learn anything I didn't already have vocabulary for or have experience with, I didn't surprise myself with my reaction, I wasn't surprised at the reaction of others...and yet it was profound nonetheless.

I put my hands on the chest of a man I didn't know, whose skin was purple and whose eyes were staring, a man whose wife crouched beside me on the floor sobbing and screaming, and I tried to push life back into him.  I failed.  The police came, and then the ambulance, there were phone calls and prayers, and "it's not over yet" - and then it was.  He didn't come back.  I had some part in all of this, and I don't know yet what that part was.  I wasn't a hero.  I didn't keep my cool and do everything right.  I didn't save the wife from grief or pain.  I didn't save the guy or die trying.  I didn't make the news.  I tried to go back to work, and then, finding I couldn't concentrate, I left an 'out of office' message in my email and went shopping.  My coworkers in an office hundreds of miles away don't know why I took the afternoon off.  My husband didn't know why I wasn't at the office, why I didn't answer my phone, and the lady at the store who asked how I was doing didn't know that as she walked away, I thought to myself, "I touched a dead man today". 

The last time I saw my aunt alive was Thanksgiving 2007.  The meal was over, the family was hanging out in various stages of turkey-coma, and my aunt, almost bald, rail thin, dying from 40 years of smoking, went to take a nap.  She took me with her to lie down.  I laid in her bed with her, in a dusty bedroom with a wall full of old vinyl records that hadn't been played in years, ashtrays on the headboard and dressers, cats curled up at our feet, and I felt that I had entered sacred space, where eternity touches the earth.  She asked me if there was anything of hers that I wanted, and I told her the pearl necklace that she'd lent me for my wedding. She said she wasn't sure where it was, and kind of drifted off, distracted.  She told me that the worst part, the part she hated most about dying, was the weakness.  And I told her that she didn't need to be strong now, that it was okay to be weak.  We talked a few moments longer, and then she fell asleep.  I quietly slipped out of the bedroom and as I joined the rest of my family, and realized they didn't know that I had just been with her, privately, that she had shared this moment with me, I wondered how they couldn't see that I was marked somehow by the experience.  I felt as though there was a ring of light around me, and I dared not touch anything, or speak too loudly, for fear it would disappear.  It was not that I felt any sense of righteousness or accomplishment, but that I had been privileged to enter sacred space, to spend a moment with the dying, and pierce the veil between this world and that other place where spirits go, where evil has no place, and there are no lies. 

Yesterday I visited a proximity to that space, a disconcerting arena where work and money, real estate and gas and politics, food and even grief don't matter.  But it was different this time.  It wasn't personal to me, didn't belong to me.  I had no part in this man's life, no perception of his spirit.  He was already gone, yet the warmth of his body belied his absence, and I just couldn't make sense of it.  Couldn't give up on him, but couldn't possibly imagine how life could again fill the space behind his eyes, could change his purple back to pink, could lift his arms to hold his dear wife.  He was gone, but so nearly gone, so closely gone.

The veil is so complete that we do not remember our pre-mortal past, our other life with God in His Heaven, so complete that our loved ones leave this life and we sometimes say that they live on in our hearts...as though they, as themselves, do not exist anymore.  And yet, they do continue to exist, they reach across the veil and touch us.  They come as angels to reveal truth to prophets and men, to save and to warn, to uplift.  They wait anxiously and fearfully, or humbly and happily, for the day of their resurrection, when they will be reunited with their bodies.  They learn and serve and work and love.  They wait.

I fear the circumstances of my own impending death.  I fear the fear that I might feel as I see it approaching.  But I do not fear what awaits me on the other side of the veil.  I do not fear that I will cease to exist, that I will forget myself or my loved ones, that I will be lost and wander, or that I will be trapped here somehow, unseen, angry or sad, and lonely.  I hope that I make of this life the work that the Lord would have me do.  I hope that I will fulfill my purpose here, that I will say, as Thoreau said, I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

this is a test

I'm curious to see if anyone I know can find me like this. How anonymous am I? Freedom to write, but to be unknown - better than a pseudonym, I hope.

Maybe I don't have any secrets worth hiding, but I can imagine some of my thoughts becoming fuel for others' fires. And I don't care about the fires of random, anonymous, unknown, others, but I would hate to be discovered by others who know me, who could and might attack me with their fire. Is it safe to muse here?

I wonder if I would find it worse to be unread, or to be criticized for my writing. This is quite the experiment, you see. I have long dreamed of writing my book. I edge forward and am inspired in my determination, and then am scared away again by the weight of my subject(s) and the scope of my desires. My husband told me today that I will write when I forget to worry about writing. So this test may not be any advance for me, except that it keeps my fingers tap-tapping on the keyboard.

I'm going to post this musing, and immediately start drafting my thoughts for today. We'll see how far this goes. My doubt asks how long I'll do this before I give up because...well, because my doubt always gets in the way. Standard writer's block, I suppose.

Anyway - inward and onward it is.