40. WALKING THROUGH THESE SATURDAYS

Forlorn - Women Before the Christ's Sepulchre
an etching published in Le Magasin Pittoresque
Paris 1845

Holy Saturday - Silent Saturday - Black Saturday: The day between the agony of Friday and the ecstasy of Sunday. Like a journey in the wilderness, not knowing the outcome intensifies the pain. When I pretend to be Mary, or Peter, or John, I imagine the immense sadness and disappointment. They didn't know then what we know now. Saturday seems like a short simple day between Friday and Sunday, because we know the outcome. But for the ones who loved, trusted and revered Jesus as their king and messiah and as an intimate and trusted friend, who were stunned to watch him succumb in the flesh at the height of his ministry, it has to have been a day of immense sorrow and many questions. Without the Holy Ghost to comfort them, I imagine it was particularly painful and confusing

Praise the Lord, Sunday came!

Except for the blessed fact that we have the Holy Spirit to guide and comfort us, I think what we are living now is a big old bunch of Saturdays, caught between crippling despair and absolute joy. Living in the in-betweens, a dusty journey circling the wilderness.

Mustering a glimmer of hope, I alternate between skipping and trudging through, though my awareness of the state of our world is making my walk seem repeatedly heavy lately. I feel the Spirit nudging me today, with a renewed awareness that losing myself in meaningful service will help lighten my walk.

Our youngest daughter, Annie, sent this to me a few months ago: A new word! One I had not known, but the definition of which speaks my language.

"Meliorism: the belief that we can contribute to positive change and improve the world through acts of love, compassion and kindness." Call me a Christian and a Meliorite, though using both terms is probably redundant. This aspect of Christianity intersects with religions worldwide. Buddhists, Muslims, B'Hai, Jews, even Athiests can believe one without the other. Our faith in Christ would not be complete without the belief that we all contribute to the common good.

What Christ asked of us, when He offered a new commandment to love each other, is not perfection. It's love, in all its messiness.

When he said "Be ye therefore perfect" the term he used was "telios", which translates to "whole, or mature, or completed." Our wholeness depends on Him as much as it does us. I sense He wants effort, not for His sake alone, though he has said His glory hinges on ours as ours hinges on His. He wants effort from us because he knows what that effort will do for us. What our acts of compassion and kindness does for others is a beautiful byproduct. That's the miraculous math of eternal truth. No one loses.

In my history with religion I have seen damage done by misuse of the word perfection. In my spiritual immaturity I mistakenly thought perfection was my personal objective. I know now that I am only perfected in Christ, who has the authority and ability to make more of me than I can make of myself. Wow, that's a relief, because I'm a wreck on my own!

On this Holy Saturday, the bridge between the agony of loss and the joy of redemption, I bind my collection of thoughts during this Lenten writing exercise. This year I have based my writing on quotes that strike me as noteworthy. There are many more than I have addressed.  I am grateful for folks who have spoken before what my heart feels now.

I leave with this last quote, by John Steinbeck:

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."

I don't have to be perfect, because He is. What a thing He makes of me! 

Expand this image on your computer and stare at the three dots for a full minute, without looking away. Then close your eyes. What you will see, in the dark place behind your eyelids, is sweet.
It represents to me how Christ can make something positive out of something negative.

39.. MASHALAM - SHALEM - TETELESTAI - IT IS FINISHED

IT IS FINISHED.

For of a man from Galilee, it would have sounded like “Mashalam”. Perhaps he had heard Joseph speak it, rubbing oil over the wood of a masterpiece, young Jesus sweeping the shavings from the floor. From the deepest part of his wounded body, “Mashalam” may have been shouted from the cross. Or it may have been whispered through quivering lips, in the Aramaic language of his youth. It means “it is submitted, or completed.” If his life were a doctoral dissertation, Jesus would pass with flying colors. Literally. A Ph.D in Restoration. The only one with authority to Atone. His raw red flesh turning to deep velvet red Doctoral Robes. Submitted and complete.

For one who preached in the synagogues and temple, the Hebrew “Shalem” would have been the word. Similar to “shalom” it indicates a restoration to perfection, a completion or return to wholeness. 

And for one who knew the law, who fully understood the language of the courts, it would have been “Tetelestai”. Teleo, the Greek mother-word, meaning to bring to an end, to accomplish or to complete a transaction. With the transfer of titles Greeks would have stamped the same word on documents, representing that a debt is paid in full. It signifies a final transaction, with nothing more to be paid.

In whatever language our Savior chose to speak them, these three final words free every living soul from the bonds of death. Until you lose someone you deeply love, these words might not be so powerful. But the bodies of some of the people I cherish most in this world lie  still in the earth. Their ashes sit heavy in urns, or are scattered in ungatherable pieces. The last words spoken by the mortal Christ are like the raised seal of a divine notary, witnessing that the transaction is complete, whatever debt we may have wittingly or unwittingly incurred is paid, and we are free to carry forward with those we love. It’s like the world tells me my trip is over while the train moves on, then someone steps up to pay for my ticket. You can keep going, He says. I’ve got you covered.

Sometimes, in desperation I say:
"Jesus, take the wheel."
More often He says:
"How bout you drive,
I trust you can do it. If not, I've got your back."
He's exactly who I want for my back-seat-driver.

IT IS FINISHED.

Ironic, isn’t it, these final words… seeming to close the book of life… when what they do is free us to live lives that know no end.

38. FAITH vs. CERTAINTY

Looking back, way back, to my childhood and how I may have defined myself, I am fairly confident I identified as a sincere Christian from the get-go. From a very young age I had an unusual self-awareness which included believing I came from another realm and was given a body for a reason. I found it comforting and easy to believe in Jesus as my mentor and guide. Without being too scrupulous, (thankfully) I focused on being kind like Jesus, being obedient like Jesus, trusting God like Jesus. My mother, having reached a climax in her own struggles with self-definition, rested her weary head on the shoulder of her Lord, who was also Jesus. So, it was natural for her little flock of children still at home to follow her lead. She took us to church. She did not separate our daily lives from our religious affiliation on Sundays. We lived what we believed. I thank her for that. Afton Hansen, as I knew her, had to do what she felt like doing. That was how she defined personal integrity. At least that's how I think she did...and that's probably assuming too much. But she was not one to be told what to do and just go along without question. It took lots of mistakes for her to come around to knowing her God. The mistakes were part of the pathway to Him. In that regard, I am grateful for the mistakes she made. 

As a child in a dysfunctional family dealing with alcoholism, our participation in the 12 Step AA program helped me analyze and define my personal relationship with God to whom my thread of connection was faith. Being among people whose lives were as messy as mine, who also loved Jesus and trusted God's ability to help us thrive in the messiness, was pivotal to my understanding of myself and how faith factored into my sense of being.

As one who placed my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter-day Saints in the first sentence of my self-definition, my truest quest was to understand what Christian faith is, how faith works, and whether or not I wanted it to have a prominent role in my life. This remains my truest quest. Learning how the Holy Ghost communicates with me personally has been part of that lifelong quest. The Holy Spirit and I speak a custom language only we understand. It's kind of cool to have a custom language. That way no adversarial forces can be part of our conversation.

Want to know what the basic definition of faith is for a Latter-day Saint? Here's what a basic Ai search  gave me online this morning:

This pretty much sums it up for me. In order for me to develop faith I needed to let go of certainty. In the culture of the church I grew up in, this felt contradictory. I thought faith was absolute. Faith so strong nothing could shake it. That's the faith I thought I had. 

Only, that wasn't faith.

Just like one cannot be brave without having fear, there is no faith where there is pure knowledge. 

The girl who stood at the podium on Free Speech Sunday (that's what our Ruby called our monthly Fast and Testimony Meeting) and proclaimed "I know this church is true" had her words wrong. If we know, we can't have faith anymore. Something inside tells me faith is the spiritual muscle we build through resistance exercises. The same way I cannot build courage without fear, I can't build faith without doubt. Knowing this, strangely, comforts me. What I might have thought of as lack of faith are actually seeds of faith reaching for light.

Six decades of experience has given me just enough answers to believe I generally know where to go to find them. They come often in unlikely ways, but they do come eventually. I plant myself with people who also seek, some of whose uncertainty aligns with mine.

Not everyone I attend church with understand me, or carry the same questions I do. But I am able to love those who might not understand me as well as those who do. We become a tribe of wanderers in the wilderness, picking up tiny pieces of truth when they fall and nourishing our hungry souls with it. We lift the manna with our fingers every Sabbath day, trusting our Lord will increase the nourishment.

There is a massive amount I do not understand. Knowing this is necessary keeps me returning to the spiritual gym, hoping to build muscles I cannot see, but I trust will keep my soul strong, healthy and able to jump for joy. 

In the ministry of Jesus, the day after he had fed 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes, and hours after he had walked on water, he preached in the synagogue. Giving his followers further light and knowledge, many of them turned and left, whispering as they left that his sayings were hard. 

Jesus turned to his apostles and asked;

"Will ye also leave me?"

Peter, speaking for himself and his brothers, answered;

"Lord, to whom would we go?"

I echo Peter.  I tuck my questions into the tissue I slip between my flesh and the sleeve of my shirt, open the door to my place of worship and seat myself where, piece by piece, I have  received answers in the past. If I cannot find Him here maybe it's because I stopped looking before the answer found me.

37. ENOUGH

Today I left home with a prayer buzzing back and forth between my brain and my heart. I drove to my daughter's house. The prayer was to know how to best help my twelve-year-old grand daughter break through the thick ice of overwhelm. Her room is a disaster and she doesn't know where to start to clean it up, but she can't stand it the way it is. So much of this dear girl is a mirror of my past. She is massively creative, almost overburdened with creativity. She is riddled with a constant barrage of ideas, and  crippled by ADHD and it's wicked need to constantly feed dopamine to the brain. Offering to help her sometimes becomes a slamming and locking of doors with sobbing on the other side. She is confusing to herself.

I empathize with her more than she could possibly know. I wish I could say I've completely outgrown the struggle... but, alas.

Praise the Lord, we were able to gently walk into the prospect of working together. I asked her to give me one assignment. Like... one item to pick up. She couldn't do that, so I asked if I might suggest something. When she said "yes" I said: "How bout I gather up all the yarn in the room?"

She is incredibly gifted with her hands. She can crochet anything, without patterns, and therefore there tends to be a spaghetti bowl of yarn on her bedroom floor. As I was untangling and winding yarn, I came upon two pieces of paper crumpled in tight balls beside the overflowing trash bin. I sat on her bed and opened the balls into pages of heartache. There, in her tidy handwriting, she flailed against herself. I have written the same at various places in my life. I gently folded the discarded paper and tucked them in my pocket, dumping the rest of the garbage in a large bag. The words on one are hers alone, and I won't share them. One day she will read them and weep for herself, for the harsh and unrealistic expectations she put on herself.

The other page had this: A self scourging, like she is her own whipping boy. It speaks, on some level, for just about everyone I know who is not narcissistic:  

I imagine my girl in the wee hours of the night, unable to sleep, but also unable to make herself do anything useful. How is it that when we ache so deeply for those we love, the love expands? Empathy, I suppose, must be a portion of love that is necessary for us to be able to experience its fulness. Goodness, I love her!

I'm comforted, and hope she will be too, by the words of our Lord, who offered to make up for our flaws. It is He who condescended so that he could fully empathize with us. 

It is He who who submitted to punishment he did not deserve.

He understands that we cannot possibly be perfect yet.

And it is He who offered to make up the difference when we fall short.

Yes, we should all be better.

He makes us enough.

 

36. DANCING ON BLOSSOMS - THE VALUE OF ART

Beth & Tess dancing on cherry blossoms.

Tonight we hopped in the car and headed to Salt Lake City on a whim. I'd read about an art installation at Memory Grove that is only here for a week. I looked intriguing. An Icelandic-Danish artist named Olafur Eliasson has created a visual and auditory experience that uses disappearing sounds from the Great Salt Lake. Our tired old salty lake is on hospice, caught in a drought for years. She is losing her lifeblood that flows from the mountains every spring. Our winter decided to head east this year and leave us here in the west high and dry. Literally.

Our daughter Annie and her two girls Beth and Tess joined us. We unfolded our camp chairs under a fully blossomed cherry tree; her fallen petals formed a white blanket under our feet. The snow-white branches above us sheltered us from most of the rain that fell.

The exhibit was a massive sphere in the middle of the park, surrounded by large speakers. We humans clustered ourselves around it. The artist had created a visual that projects inside the globe while a symphony of disappearing sounds from the Great Salt Lake pulsed through the speakers. The piece lasts a half hour. By 10 pm we were on our way home. The objective of the exhibit, sponsored by the Salt Lake Arts Council, is to give folks a visual and auditory experience to connect them to the vanishing lake to the west of us. Perhaps the symphony is a lament. I found it symbolic that waves were the vehicle for expression: Sound waves and light waves testifying for their sister water , whose waves are wilting.

My tiny phone camera couldn't capture the magic

Because it was a rainy night I anticipated a sparse gathering for this outdoor show. I was wrong. I love being wrong sometimes. A large crowd had gathered, sitting on blankets under umbrellas. It thrilled my frumpy spirit to see unknown neighbors in our community flocking to experience art.

I am reminded tonight of the power of artistic expression to feed my soul. I've been residing in my left brain, trying to figure out how to deal with the rapidly falling state of affairs in our country and in our world. It feels like we are spiraling fast. Art gently lifted me from my panic. It was refreshing and heart warming for me to join a crowd of people to engage in artistic expression, not as a political statement or intellectual exchange, but simply to inhale and exhale without having to justify ourselves... to be connected by our mere presence, regardless of race, color, religion or political alignment. Art, like nature, is the great unifier. Art about nature doubles that.

Stripping art from our culture is going to do us in! We must not let that happen. Partaking of art opens capillaries in our spirits, enriching our energies and nourishing our overtaxed souls. I realized  tonight that I often don't realize  how much I need to immerse myself in art until I experience it and feel new life flowing rapidly into me. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was.

So here's your reminder: Go swim in art for a good solid hour or so. It's good to create it, of course, but partaking without creating has its own merits. Then pause for a moment and see how you feel.

I'd usually rather look like art than look pretty.

Art is an expression of presence.

Art keeps science afloat in the ocean of life.

Be purposeful as you walk off the beaten path.