4-16-19 SHEEP (Psalm 23)

It’s lambing season here in Farmington, Utah. Our neighbors, Patricia and Steve, own a sweet little piece of earth down on Main street. Beside the lovely old rock house with the waterfall of daffodils currently streaming down the hillside, they have embraced an additional plot of meadow surrounded by woods as a sheep pasture. Last week Patricia posted this note to the neighbors:

Isn’t it just the dearest thing that we live in a place where we keep our eyes out for each other’s lambs?

Steve and Patricia's lovely property on Main Street.

Stevie Wood, the shepherd.

Today, as I drove Beth to her ballet class, we pulled over by the sheep pasture to see if there were any little lambs toddling about. No luck. But the rest of the way to her ballet class I attempted to recite the 23^rdPsalm. This is what came from the top of my head:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake, He feedeth me…something. He anoints my head with oil. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Thou settest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. My cup runneth over.  Something, something, and I shall dwell somewhere, for a long time. Amen. 

Quite honestly, I slipped into ending with… “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory Forever, Amen." But I was driving, and Beth was talking and Tess was complaining from her car seat,  and it was raining, so cut me some slack for confusing the Psalm of David with the Lord's Prayer.

But seriously, I’m a Christian! I should know this stuff. 

Not only am I a Christian, I have a passion for the analogy of sheep and shepherds. I even collect sheep. Not the real ones, just sweet little facsimiles. When I visit a foreign land, I try to find a representative little lamb for my collection.

A scene from my sofa table.

So, for this little space of time leading up to Easter I believe I will ponder the 23^rdPsalm, and in the process, try to own it. 

With the help of an old book I bought in Wales, called The Downlander Shepherd, and a little picture book I’ve had for years, called He Is My Shepherd, I’ll begin:

1. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

Sheep, unlike deer or other animals, need the guidance of a shepherd. They are vulnerable, and have been graced with the ability to follow. With the guidance of a shepherd, they will happily live and follow in flocks, uniting rather than competing with each other. If sheep have a dutiful shepherd, one who sincerely cares for their well being, they are generally calm and cooperative. Their shepherd supplies their needs.

2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

After sheep have finished grazing they lie down and chew their cud. That’s how they are made. If they are nervous or feel unsafe, they will not relax enough to follow this natural process. The presence of their shepherd allows sheep to relax and digest their food.

3. He leadeth me beside the still waters. 

Sheep are timid and easily frightened. Swift moving waters frighten them. When they are thirsty they would rather drink from stagnant water or mud holes that may be disease ridden. A good shepherd will find water that is fresh, clean and calm, so that their sheep may drink in peace. Shepherds from the Western hemisphere drive their flocks ahead of them. Eastern shepherds lead their flocks, showing the way, and they follow him. They trust him because they see him taking unknown paths before them. He will walk beside them when the landscape is wide, and when they are on familiar ground, he will sometimes call to them from behind, urging them on, while at the same time gathering stragglers and strays.

4. He restoreth my soul.

There are photos in The Downlander Shepherd that show a large woolly sheep all bloated and upside down, his legs pointed straight up in the air. You would call a sheep in this predicament "cast down". It’s a sorry sight. (I’ll spare you the visual.) Before they are shorn, sheep with a heavy coat of wool can end up upside down with the weight of their wool. Often they lie down on a slope and end up rolling the wrong way, then they cannot right themselves. The hot sun on the sheep’s soft belly can bring death in just a few hours. A good shepherd keeps careful watch on each member of his flock, counting them, calling them by name, and when one is distressed, or cast down, he restores him to his rightful position.

Stray sheep are also collected and restored to the flock.

5. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Sheep are stubborn animals, and they are prone to easy paths. In ancient days, in holy lands, there were narrow paths between fields of crops which were owned by individual farmers. If animals strayed into those fields and ate crops, farmers were entitled to take the sheep of kill them. Shepherds trained their flocks to walk in single file through these passages, his voice urging them to stay on the narrow paths. In order for a shepherd to keep his own sheep he had to make sure they remained on the safe paths. Flocks were known by the name of their shepherd, and it was costly for him to lose sheep who went astray.

In rocky and hilly areas, or marshy meadows, sheep had to be carefully guided for their own safety, and for the safety of the flock. If one sheep failed, the attention the shepherd had to give that sheep put the rest of the flock at risk. Wise shepherds know that it is easier, in the end, to move a flock carefully and slowly rather than haphazardly.

(Tomorrow I will continue with the rest of Psalm 23. But here goes, sight unseen, after having walked myself through it.)

1. The Lord is my SHEPHERD, I shall not want. 

2. He maketh me to lie down in GREEN PASTURES. 

3. He leadeth me beside the  STILL WATERS. 

4. He RESTORETH my soul. 

5. He leadeth me in the PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS for His name’s sake.

Here's how I see it in story form: Jesus, my shepherd, takes care of me. He makes me lie down in a green pasture, then he leads me to water, then when I fall over with my belly full of water, he restores me to my upright position. After we have eaten grass and drunk water we file through the fields of a village one by one, with crops on either side, and I do not wander into the crops. If I leave the path then someone else can claim me, and I need to keep my shepherd’s name.... (to be continued)

4-15-19 SMOKE III (NOTRE DAME)

They are gold, pasty gold, lunging upward, and though I cannot literally smell them from my safe leather chair an ocean and full continent away, I know the plumes of smoke rising from the Notre Dame Cathedral are acrid. I inhale slowly, aware of the clean air entering my lungs. The knowledge interferes with my attempt to pretend I am there witnessing the loss. There is a haunting remembrance shivering on my skin, recalling that I watched, from this same space, the engulfing flames of the Twin Towers nearly a generation ago. 

When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell in New York I was already in a grieving place, though thinking back on it now, it seems nearly every phase of our lives involves some level of grief. I was in the process of redefining myself as a woman; my children had all flown my nest, my mother was waning in her life, my body was feeling the onset of age. 

Today, as I watch the flesh melting away from that iconic edifice in Paris, I am aware of the eleven grandchildren who have come to us since I watched the smoke rising from those iconic New York towers. Today my grandchildren and I share this sorrow. 

Last year some of those grand children's voices echoed off the walls of that cathedral on a trip to Paris. We, ourselves, were there just a breath ago, humbled by the massive shadow the structure cast in that sparkling city, stunned by the intricacies of the architecture and the art, let alone the holiness of the spot.

I have found my day unfolding, under this breaking news, differently than I had anticipated when I woke this morning. I cannot tear myself from the news. I watch as the skin melts away, exposing the bones of the structure. The steeple, stiff against the licking flames like Joan of Arc, evolved into a skeleton, eventually falling into the roof below. I cannot turn away. Its as if I feel called to witness, in spite of the horror.

Just yesterday the place was abuzz with worshippers. It was Palm Sunday. In remembrance of the return of Jesus to his holy city, faithful Catholics waved palms under the stable old rafters of Notre Dame. Children would fold those palms into little crosses to be hung on their bedroom walls. Traditionally the leftover palms from that service would be kept by the priest and burned, the ashes saved to be used next year on Ash Wednesday. I imagine beautiful Parisian Catholics next year wearing the ashes of Notre Dame streaked in the configuration of a cross on their foreheads. Mountains of ashes for the taking.

As Isaiah said, Beauty for ashes.

While I watched the flames suck the life out of such an irreplaceable treasure, my computer whistled notice of an incoming message. A text arrived from our daughter, Kate:

"There's a little bird  nest on my porch 

with little bird eggs!"

She sent a picture:

And then she added:

"It made me think of Gram."

a photo from my lap;
Kate's message in the foreground.
Notre Dame burning in the background.

From the corner of a window on the porch of her little house in upstate New York, Kate sent, unawares, a breath of resuscitating hope. Here was a waft of fresh spring air amidst the life-sucking smoke of the fall of Notre Dame. Here was a reminder that what God has instilled in the breast of every female robin is an instinct to gather twigs and twine and bind them with mud. We humans do it too. We assemble cathedrals, and we watch them fall, in spite of our most noble efforts.

And we weep for the loss.

And then, we weep again, different tears; remembering that the cycle of life goes on. Evidence rests peacefully in the corner of Kate's window.

We may question it when major tragedies befall us, but the truth remains: God does not sleep.

4-13-19 LAYERS II (KERSHISNIK)

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I am revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-11-19 the word was LAYERS. Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

I stood in the swirl of hushed words, museum-soft conversations mixed with cheery greetings and the friendly slapping of backs that come with comfortable hugs between friends too long separated. My eyes scanned the walls of paintings, layered up to the tall ceiling of Brian Kershisnik's Provo studio. We had travelled down from Farmington to share Brian's sacred work space, arranging ahead of time meet friends, Tom and Gael Shults there. Carla and Dave Eskelsen, the third line in our decades-old musical triangle, had unexpected conflicts that kept them from coming. There's always a hole when they are not with us at times like this. But golly, it was good to reconnect with Tom and Gael, and to share time and space with Brian, in his element.
Brian, the Shults' and Eskelsens, and a blessed handful of others, are part of our songwriters circle, which we named Saltwerks about 30 years ago. Old friends are the sweetest kind of friends. They know the in's and out's of us. Usually Saltwerks meets at our house in Farmington, but we have been less diligent in gathering, and I miss these friends. Usually, when I see Brian, it is with a guitar in hand rather than a paintbrush, and it's in my space, at our house up north. Brian Kershisnik is a fabulous singer/songwriter. His music, and his writing, and guitar playing are vital membranes in a multi-layered man.

At the end of Brian's Q & A we begged him
to play one of his songs for us. Many people were
surprised at this magical layer they had not known.

But today, he was in his element as a world-renowned visual artist. His works are in high demand. They grace the walls of museums, galleries, universities, historic buildings and homes. And today Dave and I were lucky enough to find ourselves in Brian's wonderful art space, looking up.

Twice a year Brian opens his studio to the public, inviting friends and not-yet-friends to come see what he's up to. The walls and shelves are lined with works-in-progress, paintings and sculptures in various embryonic stages. It is quite a sight to see. I stood there, listening in on a conversation that drifted into my ears, and noticed in the reflection of light on a large piece above me, that there was, in an under layer of the oil painting, the outline of a skirt on one of the figures. As I looked closer, from my vantage point, I could also tell that the basic position of the woman had changed. You'd never know it looking straight on, but from underneath I could tell that the artist had changed his mind, and the woman was at some point transformed. Her dress went from wide and flowing to plain and thin, and her dancing back became straight. It got me thinking about layers.

Brian Kershisnik's current works in progress. Layers on layers.

One of the first principles I teach in songwriting workshops is the concept of change. We must allow our art to evolve. To expect that art comes to us perfected by inspiration is either ignorant or arrogant. Experience has taught most artists that we must work through layers upon layers of manifestation. More seasoned artists will tell you that art is more often found instead of created. We labor away uncovering the layers. Unwitting observers will perceive it as an artist creating, because they are adding upon, offering paint, or words, or motion to whatever their canvas might be. But in truth, the adding upon is really peeling away various not-quite-right's. We use them up, one by one, knowing that somewhere in the pile of possibilities there is something close to the truth. 

At some point in the open house we all settled into a circle around Brian and he answered questions, offering us a glimpse into the prism of his creative process, his struggle to balance the business of art with the creation of art, and the meaning behind some of his artistic decisions. It was an inspiring, candid glimpse into a multi-faceted being. He talked about drawing with friends when he was a child, about his international upbringing, moving from country to country with his family. He confessed his strengths without pride, and his weaknesses without apology. 

Candor is one of Brian's gifts. He has a poet's heart.

During the Q and A I sat in Brian's comfy rolling  chair, a simple black office chair with splotches of paint on the arms. I held in my lap his painter's smock.

As he talked I swept my fingers over the layers of paint on the fabric. Brian is a good steward over his paints, and for as long as he has used this smock, there is relatively little paint on it. He is not sloppy with his tools.
"If I mix too much green, I find another one of my paintings that might need it." He works on dozens of pieces at a time. It boggles my mind. But he knows when to move into the space of a piece as it evolves, and when to move out. He will completely remove major parts of paintings, covering over the less eternal truths in his quest to release what wants to be known. His vulnerability is his blurse, his blessing and curse. He allows himself to be used, and in the process risks all sorts of things the average person is unwilling to risk. It is his beautiful sorrowful ecstasy, and I breaks my heart and causes me great joy that he has to go through such things in order to produce that which he was called to do.
Gael and I insisted that Brian put on his smock, to complete the visual we had in our minds. Gael asked where he bought it, because she is also a painter and wants one of her own. 

"Well," Brian said, "Go down to D.I. and get an old shirt and then an old bed sheet that kind of matches it. Cut off the shirt just below the chest and sew on a pleated layer of the bed sheet. You won't even have to hem it if you use the sheet right." He had sewn the smock himself.

I think it's symbolic that the layers of paint on his
white smock seem to protect his vital organs.

Brian's smock in it's infancy,
working on his divinely moving piece,
Descent from the Cross.

When the open house finally wound down and the evening was settling in, the five of us shuttled over to Pizzeria 712 for some nourishment. We sat together, sharing bites of our meals, discussing the divine nature of mankind and the value of a really good pizza and slow roasted short ribs.

By the time our five spoons slipped in and out of our shared cup of chocolate pudding, we were sweetly leaning in toward each other, speaking comfortably about the emotions we imagined Jesus' family and friends might have felt as they lowered him from the cross.
"Friday had to have carried the most  profound chorus of despondency," Brian said, alluding to the painting I had mentioned, Descent from the Cross. 

He went on: "When we read about that pivotal event, we know the outcome. We cannot read it without knowing what would happen. But they did not know. Those who lived it, they could not have known for certainty that he would come back." He imagined their great stunned sense of hopelessness, that the Son of God, whom they believed had the power to save himself, had not done so. Even the angels had to have been mystified. Knowing the thoughts behind Brian's epic painting makes it all the more beautiful. The stark reality that Jesus was dead had to have ripped their hearts right out of those who loved and believed him.

Descent from the Cross, Kershisnik

We, who can see this end from the beginning, try to empathize with them. But it's hard to peel away knowledge once you've received it. We know he came back. We know he rose on the third day. We can whisper from our knowing places, "Don't worry, Peter, you will get past your denial. Don't fret Mary, you will see him soon. And Thomas, you will feel the scars in his hands and wrists." 

But Brian, leaning against the small table at dinner, explaining why he spent so much of his soul on that piece of art, showed us the possibility that they did not know then what we know now. Their life altering despondency on that ironically named Good Friday, dark as it was, sets powerfully and sweetly against the radiant light that revealed itself that Easter morning.

Jesus taught in layers. Rings of meaning under the living bark of his parables. He offers to each of us just enough for us to digest. Then, if we live long enough, and seek for it, one by one the layers peel off, until, like Michelangelo, we are left with the masterpiece that always dwelt within the stone.

Pieta' by Michelangelo

The real sign under the Open House sign on Brian's studio door.

matter unorganized

matter organized

Nativity
We hang a copy of this in our house at Christmas
The original is something like 17 feet wide.

Father and Son Dancing

Jesus and the Angry Babies

She Will Find What Was Lost

4-12-19 MITE II

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I am revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-27-19 the word was MITE. Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

A few years back, before our daughter Kate started her doctoral studies back east, she taught sixth grade in Houston, Texas. She had gone to Texas originally as part of Teach for America, an organization that trains dynamic young college graduates to teach, then sends them out into underprivileged communities as mentors and examples to young people. Kate was assigned to a Title One school in Houston. She was part of the 1% "white or other" population in that area. After teaching for Teach for America for three years she joined KIPP schools, charter schools with the same philosophy but with added outrageous expectations from their staff. (I can say that because I watched it with a mother's bias). Students spent at least 10 hours a day in school, and teachers spent more. Kate was rarely home from work before 8 pm. The theory is that if you keep kids busy, they are less likely to get into trouble. There was also Saturday school, and kids were given teachers' cell numbers so they could communicate outside of school. There are certainly pros and cons to the arrangement.

Each year the KIPP Intrepid Middle School sent their kids on class trips, and I'm not talking little ones. For Kate's grade, the kids and teachers went to Moab, Utah every year. I'm not sure where they got the funding for this, but each year they loaded a couple big travel buses with kids and teachers and parent chaperones and they wove their way up through Texas and New Mexico, into Arizona and Utah. I've taken that trip, when we moved Kate to Houston, and it's a humdinger of a drive. 

For the first couple years I baked 150 brownies and we loaded up my sound equipment and guitars and we made the trip down to Moab to sing around the campfire with the kids, and to give our Kate a hug.

Then one year they decided to drive just a bit further north to Salt Lake and let the kids experience snow in the mountains before heading back down to Moab. Most of the kids were Latino, from Mexico, and they had never seen snow.

One of the buses broke down and they spent hours on the side of the road in New Mexico. Because of the delay the caravan was going to arrive in SLC late at night. It was unseasonably cold, and a whipping wind came down through the mountains into the Salt Lake valley.  I drove out to the KOA site where the KIPP team had planned to set up tents and camp for a few nights. It was bitter cold, and dark at the campground. I called Kate, knowing she had just spent 20 hours on a bus with hormonally driven eleven-year-olds, and a few hours broken down on the side of the road, trying to contain the herd in the New Mexico heat. I just could not imagine them setting up tents in the wind and cold at 1 am.

"Hey," I said,"why don't you just bring everyone to Farmington for the night. The girls can stay here at our house and the boys can stay at Libby's" 

The Kipp Intrepid crowd in our front yard.

So in the wee hours of the morning two big Lewis Bus Line buses pulled into our cul-de-sac and a stream of tired, travel-worn kids filtered into our houses, which are next to each other here in our neighborhood. Fifty sixth grade girls camped out on every inch of floor space in our house. The female teachers and chaperones got all the guest beds and couches. The male teachers and boys took over Libby's house.

The next morning they traveled up into the snow. We set to work barbecuing chicken for 130 people. That evening we fed them chicken and rice and salads and dessert down in the bowery of Forbush Park. When the sun set we returned to our houses. I sat on my fireplace hearth with my guitar and sang with a mass of dark haired adolescent girls as they smashed into my living room. Some of the girls giggled in the basement. We ate popcorn and talked as they swirled in our space. 

At one point I went back into my master bathroom and there were Kate and two other teachers with two of their students. One was sitting in a chair, one on the edge of the tub, and the girls were on the floor. The teachers were hovered over the girls talking in happy tones as they pulled fine toothed combs through the hair of the girls. Kate lifted her eyes to me, and whispered "Lice". They quietly treated the hair of those girls, letting them maintain their dignity. That night three other girls ended up throwing up all night. A bug, of overindulgence, or homesickness, or monthly issues...I'm not sure what caused it. But it's a good thing we have a lot of bathrooms in this house.

The next morning I walked over to Libby's house and knocked on the door of the lower level, where the boys were camped out. When the door opened I was almost knocked over with a waft of aftershave! Teenage boys and aftershave...YIKES! Their teachers had insisted that each boy take a shower, and they allowed one minute per boy. One of them sat outside the door with a stopwatch, pounding on the door when time was up. The buzz at Libby's house was electric, but less giddy than at our house with all those girls.

All too soon the buses loaded up with fresh clean kids and their sleeping bags and backpacks and pillows, and off they went down toward Moab.

The AMAZING KIPP teachers.

I got to thinking about two pretty sweet images that stick in my mind, besides the wonderful picture of all of them gathered in our front yard.

One was the unexpected cluster of teachers huddled around two young girls, gently cleansing them, like Mary at the feet of the Savior, diligently removing nits and mites from their hair. Hours of combing, laughing with the girls while they worked. Meanwhile the rest of the kids did kid stuff, unaware of the sacred nurturing taking place back there in my bathroom. It made me all weepy, knowing the devotion and love that these teachers had for their young charges. 

Those teachers knew how to manifest love.

The second is the look on the face of my sister Libby when I asked her if 50 teenage boys could stay at her house for two nights. Mind you, I didn't really ASK her...I sort of told her. And her response was "OK!"

The thing is, I knew she would be OK. I knew she would push furniture out of the way, and gather up all her towels and blankets, and she would pop some popcorn and open her pop shop... on top of doing the BBQ dinner we had already planned for 130 people we didn't know. And though she might be a little bothered, she would laugh it off, when a month later her basement still smelled like aftershave. 

We do what we do because we love. And that love is not selective. As long as people can forgive my mess, I will welcome them here. And so will my sister. And so will my Kate.

Libby and me - partners in all sorts of crime.

Ms. Connors and other super-hero Teach for America teachers.

KIPP teachers victoriously (finally) make it to Moab.

4-11-19 TRIP II

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I am revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-29-19 the word was TRIP. Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

I grew up attending church socials in a sturdy but sterile building we called the Peasant Hills chapel in Jefferson Hills, PA. One particular evening we had gathered as a ward for a pot-luck dinner. I believe it must have been during the chilly months, because Genevieve Deutsch was wearing a coat. I stood near the gold accordion curtain that divides the chapel from the basketball court, the same curtain that would later serve as a backdrop for my wedding line. Tables striped the wall to the left of the stage where, one by one, our brothers and sisters in Christ had added their pot-luck offerings; Beno Mann’s always anticipated strawberry-pretzel Jell-O salad, Connie Spresser’s pork bar-b-que, Ag Payne’s cherry squares. For some reason I cannot recall my own mother’s additions to the culinary fare. She was a spectacular cook, and I am surprised I don’t remember even one specialty she added to the mix. I do recall the aromas, the melding of ethnic flavors, cabbage rolls and chili and chocolate and such, all swirling and bouncing off the cement walls of the gym. 

The hall echoed with chatter, and children squealing, and rubber shoes squeaking in the same company as clicking high heels and clunky work boots. I was standing over by the accordion curtain when I caught the action from the corner of my eye. Genevieve Deutsch had entered the hall carrying a cake, or a casserole (what she was carrying is as mysterious as her age to me, a foggy minded teenager at the time). She was dressed in a woolen skirt, like she always wore, and thick nylon stockings. She was plump, and pleasant, and reserved in her ways. As she crossed the gym floor in the direction of the serving tables, her hands holding the dish in front of her, she tripped. She must have tripped. I didn’t really see what happened, I just saw her go down.  Her plate went flying with a flash, and at the same moment as the rest of the room fell illogically silent, dead silent, Genevieve’s hair went flying as well. Someone near her bent over and helped her up. I watched from my distant position. They helped her up and she raised her short German arms up above her head, her stubby hands embracing her head, the reality of her thin matted hair exposed and glowing there in the silence of that room. Her wig had slid across the golden varnished floor, landing under the dessert table. In movies that would be made during the subsequent years of my life, scenes like this would be fodder to laughter. But, then, and now, it brings a pinching sadness. I remember her eyes searching the room. It was surely only a millisecond, but it felt like an eternity, like the whole gym was a massive freight car going over the rail in slow motion. I blinked my eyes, in that slow framed film of memory, and turned my face away, cognizant of the dignity that had been stripped from dear Sister Deutsch, wishing instantly that it had not happened to her. The sound of her hitting the floor, the screams of people who saw it happen, the orchestration of heads turning toward her shame, the instant sorrow in the realization that her sense of self went flying with her wig, straight across that holy space and came to a stop too far for a graceful recovery. I never would have guessed Sister Deutsch wore a wig. 

I loved Gen Deutsch, though she likely would not have known that. She was not a part of my little active world. But she was the wife of the first Branch President of our little church there in Pleasant Hills. At least the first of my recollection. President Deutsch, who would likely have never asked for such a responsibility, but who accepted it when the calling came, was not a born leader. But he led, nonetheless. We were such a tiny little band of followers then. By the time I was a teenager we had become a small ward, with a real bishop and a gym we had built with our own hard-earned money and our own hands, and a real kitchen. And President Deutsch had grown old, and so had his wife who always stood faithfully beside him in her woolen skirt and thick nylon stockings. 

There is not a whole lot I remember about the particulars of our ward dinners. There was always good food, and good feelings, and noise and acceptance. But there is always, also, that memory of the night Gen Deutsch lost her wig. She sealed herself to my heart in that instant. Maybe it was that ward dinner where I tasted my first heaping serving of compassion.

I have an unhealthy fear of falling; have had for years. I have a ridiculous worry that this is how I am going to go down, and by that I mean DOWN. But if it is the vehicle through which I enter the portals of Heaven, I suppose I will see Sister Genevieve Deutsch there and she will embrace me with a full and lustrous head of hair, as will my own mother, and I will join the heavenly pot luck knowing everything works together for our good.