GOT THIRST?

Got thirst? Good! Me too! That means we're in this together!

My sisters and I ventured out today to purchase flour on the black market, since that is where you have to get flour these days. Actually, a guy advertised in an online marketplace that he had to close his restaurant and was therefore selling his current order of baking supplies. So we met in the parking lot of an abandoned store and he hefted 50 lb bags of flour, some sugar and some yeast into the back of my car and I paid him through Venmo. Never even touched the stuff. That's how things are done these days, in our world.

When I got home it was 2 pm, and the sun was shining and the springtime air was breezy and dry and the urge to just get a nice long drink of water, or even more tempting, a cool tall glass of Coke on ice... the thought of it almost overwhelmed me. And then I remembered.

I love that word: Remember. It's one of the most divine in our vocabulary.

I remembered we are fasting today, this Good Friday. In response to the call of our prophet, we join a worldwide day of fasting and prayer, that we will have the Lord's sheltering and guiding hand as we journey through this pandemic. I've fasted almost all my life, at least once a month, The first Sunday of every month, in our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we fast and witness to ourselves, our Lord, and each other, that we have confidence in God and are willing to sacrifice for each other. So, basically, I've been in "Fast training" all my life.

Still, it's hard! I'm so used to getting what I want when I want it. This is such a good and humbling exercise for our bodies and our spirits. Hooray for hard, and for people training themselves to do it.

One day, when I was teaching the gospel through song to the little kids in our church, it was fast Sunday and I asked the kids if any of them had tried fasting yet. Many of them raised their hands, which was quite moving to me. I asked them if it was painful for them. And they said "Oh yes!"

We talked a bit about pain. And then I told them about discomfort, and how it's sort of like pain but not quite. There is a difference between pain and discomfort. When I am fasting... truly fasting, for a long time, I feel the stages of the fast. It begins with the emotional loss, the absence of routine that involves eating or drinking: the gulp of water after you brush your teeth, the banana or smoothie in the morning. Then, as the day progresses, it turns to little snips of thirst, or pangs of hunger here and there. They pass, without much problem. It then moves into discomfort. I am aware of my dry mouth, of the pinch in my stomach. And then, deeper in, there is the constant grip of hunger. I rarely let myself go there in my daily life. I am always surprised, when I get through those phases, how I end up, near the end of my fast, settled into a place of peace and spirituality. Often, when I fast only a meal or two, I never get to that spot, and that's a shame. But today, I feel it coming.

Right now, however, I'm in the "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have some nice cool water" phase. The pollen has given me a perpetual headache, and my habit is to think, pretty much always, that food or drink will help me feel better.  Alas.

I love the law of the fast as it walks hand in hand with prayer. Every time I feel thirst, or hunger, I immediately send up a prayer. It's like that little "ding" I hear on my cell phone when I have set a reminder for myself. Fasting helps fulfill the request to pray always. And the deeper I go into it, the more constant and sincere are the prayers. A side effect is compassion and empathy for those whose lives include daily hunger and thirst.

So right now, mid-afternoon on Good Friday, I celebrate every single other human on this planet who hungers and thirsts for righteousness' sake. We unite our prayers and send them heavenward in a massive blast, like the shofar horns being blown heavenward in the holy temple. Our hunger stirs our prayers, and they rise like smoke, heavenward.

Hear us, oh Lord!

(Covid 19 Death toll: 102,687)

FOCUS

The week before Christmas, just a few months ago, our kids and grandkids and my sisters who live close-by gathered for our traditional Christmas Family Night. Usually we do this on Christmas Eve, but this time John and Ashley were taking their family to Mexico to help build houses for the poor. So, we met in our home for dinner, followed by tradition: service sharing, a tidbit of wisdom from Gummy and Gumpa, and our Nativity. We end the night by giving the Grands their new Christmas pajamas.

About a decade ago Dave and I had given our children and siblings a sculpture of two hands, held out together in the manner of giving. We told them that we no longer wanted them to give us presents for Christmas. Instead, we wanted them to provide purposeful and meaningful service for others, then report to us what they had done. There is value in returning and reporting. Accountability is a fine motivator.

We now have a precious large album that sits on our coffee table at Christmastime, wherein are found photographs and stories and drawings of beautiful acts of service given by the people we hold most dear. Each family reports on what they have done, and then gives us a page for our album. It is a growing treasure.

Each year Dave and I give some sort of spiritual token to them. This year I bound Come Follow Me manuals, designed to help us in our scripture study, and an edition of the Book of Mormon that I really like. And I made these little magnets for the kids to put in their homes as reminders:

I used the idea of an optometrist’s eye chart to emphasize our desire to have them focus on their Lord, just a little more. We get so comfortable in our lives, if we are lucky. The demands of daily living, when not in crisis, drive us along the path of complacency. It’s human nature. 

What Dave and I wanted was for our kids and grands to focus just a teeny bit more. Not to overwhelm, but to encourage. It’s not hard to try just a little bit. I handed them this image, and asked them to focus while I counted. 

“Don’t look at anything else, just the dots in the middle.” I watched as the littlest and the biggest stared at their pieces of paper. Then I asked them to close their eyes and look into the black behind their eyelids. You can also just look at a white wall or a piece of blank paper.

Suddenly seven-year-old Joe let out a squeal, “Aaaaaah!  Aaaah! I see him! I see him! It’s Jesus!” His delight drove us all to laughter, and deep affection. The negative turns to a positive in our brains, and sure enough, an image of Jesus will appear if you focus long enough.

Then I handed everyone the following detail from the famous Sistine Chapel, where God, the Creator, is reaching toward Adam, otherwise known as Michael. 

“Look at their fingers.” I said. Look how close they are, and yet they do not touch.

I asked them if they had heard the song that says God will force no man to Heaven? Or if they'd seen the picture of Jesus standing at the door knocking, but there’s no door knob? How does He get in?

Parker replied, correctly, that we must let Him in, He will not force himself on us.

“So, here’s Adam, so very close to God, but look at his posture. He is almost too comfortable. If he just stretched, even just a little, he could touch the finger of God.”

Come on, Man, can't you stretch just a teeny bit more?

I asked the people whose lives and choices affect my heart more than any other if they could perhaps, this coming year, give a little more focus and a tiny stretch.

I was talking to our kids, but really, it was myself I was addressing.

Now, a few months after Christmas, I realize that it is not a difficulty for me to think about God in my daily life. Pandemics are great facilitators that way. I pray constantly for my friend in the hospital with this disease, which leads me to pray for his family, which leads me to pray for my family, and then the human family. My yearning heart, aching to hold my treasures, ponders daily how I might serve them without touching them. My siblings are constantly on my mind, as are my friends, and I feel strangely more connected to them through our shared isolation.

I see with a clarity that makes focus easier, because of the struggle we are in. I don’t hardly have to try, it’s a side effect of generalized suffering.

And as for the tiny stretch, I feel my spiritual tendons loosening day by day, stretched in my sleeping and waking thoughts. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that as I am compelled to resist touching those I crave, the ones I long to draw into a full-bodied embrace... the further I get from them, the closer I get to Him.

 (Covid 19 deaths to date 88,502)

CURVES

When I was an adolescent, trying to figure out the language of adolescent boys, it was my understanding that guys liked curves. On girls, at least. So, when I started getting some, I felt dandy. Then, when the reality of my habits mixed with my gene pool, those curves took an evil turn. Concave became convex, in all the wrong places.

I have a love/hate relationship with curves. The curvy roads of western PA made me motion sick.  And the stupid bell curve in college got me my first and only failing grade. (My professor: “Somebody had to fail. I guess it was you.”)

But the beautiful bulge under my heart, stretching over my babies? I loved those curves. And I do enjoy spreading soft butter cream frosting over little mounds of moist chocolate drop cookies. 
And... rainbows!

There’s a lot of talk about curves in the news these days. My daughter, who is a doctor, said in a phone conversation a few weeks ago, that whomever created that coronavirus curve graph would likely be on a Nobel Prize short list. The way the world has reacted to what that graph of curves represents makes me think she might be right. Basically, the two curves on that graph represent us humans, one if we went on living our lives like normal, and the other, the shorter one, if we altered the way we lived and what we chose. Those of us trying to be responsible, reasonable citizens, are following the prescription of staying home, staying away from other people and places where the virus might be present. It has been a dramatic change. Seriously dramatic! It’s actually quite moving to me, to see how we can cooperate as a culture, and how our respect for others and for ourselves sits soundly as a foundation under our choices. Way to be, fellow humans!

Being dutiful, however, creates its own crazy circus! My friend Sharla is on a roller coaster ride right now. Yesterday it looked like the ride might even be ending. But it looks today like we just hit a low point, and the car decided to take a teeny upward curve today. Her husband Frank is a patient at McKay Dee Hospital, riding that rickety roller coaster of Covid 19. Not sure how that sneaky little virus found its way into that workhorse of a man, it has taken the family and all his friends for a loop, that’s for sure. He is intubated and sedated. Oxygen is being forced into his lungs to keep him alive. No one who knows and loves him can even see him. A kind hearted nurse has to dress from head to toe in protective clothing to take an ipad in so they can see him and talk to him, hoping that the sound of their voices will give him courage and hope.

Last week, when Sharla dropped Frank off at the hospital, they would not even let her in to see him after she parked. She didn’t even get to kiss him goodbye, or whisper some sweet little nothing. Just, "I’ll see you in a minute." But that minute didn’t come, and Sharla waits at home, distanced from her kids and grandkids, and from the man whose name she has owned most of her life. I don’t think I know a stronger woman than Sharla, but this is a serious stressor, so I pray for her, as I pray for Frank. And their kids… I can’t even imagine… terrified for their dad, worried about their mom, and trying to calm their own throbbing hearts. All from a painful distance.

Years ago, when my mom was alive, she was sharing a meal with us. I looked at her across the dinner table and knew instantly that something was wrong. She thought she might be having a heart attack. We went immediately to the hospital. It turned out to be a bona fide panic attack. This was a new experience for us then. We are more familiar nowadays. Mom and I were able to get help from a great psychiatrist. He recommended a book that Mom and I read together: Hope and Help for Your Nerves. The thing I most remember, and that I most use in my own anxious moments, is the concept of the roller coaster. Instead of bracing ourselves, wishing the ride would stop, holding our breath until it does, the safer thing to do is to breathe out, raise our arms, and just ride it on down, trusting that once we hit the bottom we will start to rise. It takes incredible courage. And it works. Mom eventually crawled off that roller coaster, a bit dizzy, with a healthy respect for what the human mind can do to the human heart.

Tonight, I look out my front door and peer into heaven through the brilliant light of a Super Moon. I understand it is the closest the moon will be to the earth this year. I look at it, silvery-pink and bright and dependable, noting the perfect curve. True to its course, the curve travels round and round, until it reaches the starting point. I place my confidence in the belief that one day my arms will do the same; wrap themselves around the people I cherish, one hand meeting the other, with a super-moon portion of love inside. 

And I pray, for Sharla and Frank, their arms will do the same.

(Covid 19 toll to date: 82,108)

APRIL 1

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if the heavens opened with some sort of magical fanfare, maybe something like fireworks with a Disney band parading through the sky, and then a giant pair of shutters swings open and Staint Peter himself peeks out, smiling. He looks over the human race, holding on for dear life as the earth spins out of control, winks, and then shouts:

“APRIL FOOLS! Everybody back to your regular places now. Wasn’t this fun?”

Except for the fact that people have been, and continue to be seriously sick and dying. That’s the part that makes us all sober up and take this seriously. As we should. 

But wouldn’t it be the ultimate April Fool’s joke? One for the ages?

Hang in there, everybody!

Here's a little tidbit about how April Fools may have originated:

Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree in the late 1500s ordering that Christian countries adopt a standardized calendar. The Gregorian calendar moved the new year from the end of March to the first of January; people who continued to celebrate on the old day, either because it was the 16th century and word traveled slowly or because they simply wanted to be a rebel, were mocked as “April fools.”

(Coronavirus deaths to date: 47,249)