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.

 

35. NO MERE MORTALS - MEASURING LOVE

Today, Holy Monday, also happens to he the birthday of the finest human I know. I remain stunned and humbled that he has aligned his heart with mine. Because his heart is also so firmly stitched to his Lord's, I am gratefully connected to my Lord with him and through him.

David is an early riser. I am not. We still get along.

Most nights, when I come to bed, I find him sleeping peacefully. I tiptoe to my side of the bed and every single time thank the Lord for this man in my life. I literally whisper, "I love him so deeply." The utterance of those words is part of my nightly prayer.

I used to say "I love him so much," but I've changed. In a personal attempt to understand the concept of love, I'm at a point where I don't see it as measurable. Love itself might be a force whole unto itself, unaffected my our influence or desires. I take what it is and place it in myself, using it as guided. It neither increases nor decreases, it just... is.

What is measurable is its placement in me.  I can adjust the vessel of love, but not love itself. When I invite the energy of love to participate in a relationship, it is me who might restrict the portion I use. I become my own limitation. I can love deeply, or shallowly, but I cannot alter the love itself. Like a recipe, I can change how much I use, but the ingredient is constant.

So I love deeply, as deeply as I know how in this mortal state, the man I married. I recognize how rare this is.  I'm grateful to like the person I am married to, and to know he likes me. How hard it would to be married to someone you don't particularly like. I like him, and I love him.

I encourage all of us to move in directions of love and respect for self and others in our relationships. There are many ways to use the energy of love: to build, maintain, or let go. All of these can be manifestations of love.

Respect for fellow beings is probably one of my most deeply held longings, for myself and mankind. This is what troubles me most about our current national leadership.The level of disrespect for the divinity of fellow human beings is shocking to me. I have to catch myself from lowering my standards to meet theirs. When anger bubbles up I remind myself of this quote from CS Lewis. Here's a portion of it. You can read his deeper thoughts on it in his book, The Weight of Glory:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship….

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.… Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

 I remind myself that I am not dealing with mere mortals. I'm interfacing with souls who are ancient, to whom bodies are relatively new, and to whom I have a divine stewardship to aid in our journeys. I get tired, and emotional, and overwhelmed with frustration. But when I step back and remember we are all just down here trying, I'm able to calm my nerves a bit. I'm not good at always showing respect, like David usually is. I get a little too emotional. But knowing I get emotional, I am trying to train myself to pause, take inventory and let the Lord of Lords be the judge. I can speak up against abuse and injustice, and reason with those who would be willing to reason. I am trying to understand why things are happening as they are in many areas of civilization. But even if I don't understand, I am obligated by my own integrity to open myself up to allowing love for those who would present as enemies as well as those who are easy to love. Its a big learning curve for me.

Look at the people you encounter today. Try to see them with the eyes of Jesus. That's a good way to start this holy week, and its how I will the celebrate the existence on this earth of the person I trust just as much as I trust Jesus. They both remain holy to me.

at the cottage in Michigan

with his only son, John

as a Federal Appellate Court law clerk
with Jay Powell, now Chair of the Federal Reserve for the US,
and Judge Van Graafieland, Second Circuit Court of Appeals

our posterity

willing to speak up,
(now that he's retired from the bench)

in his Judicial chambers, before retirement

when his robes were new

preparing to fight poison ivy at the cottage

the Joesph to my Mary

his shoulders support so many

catching dinner

Beloved friends from his days at Yale:
Katrina Lantos-Swett, Jeffrey R Holland, Dr. Bob Christensen

Grow old along with me.

I love him.

34. SERENITY

When the wound of co-dependency was deep enough that Mom figured out she needed help, she took us all to the Methodist Church near South Hills Village where folks learned how to rise from the dregs of alcoholism. 

I'd heard of AA - Alcoholics Anonymous. But as an eleven or twelve-year-old I had not heard about Ala-Teen, a place of healing for the children of alcoholics.

We pulled up to that unfamiliar church, nervous and hesitant. Mom took us to the room where other kids had gathered, then took herself to the space where the spouses of alcoholics met.

Thinking back on it, it must have taken a big old wad of courage for her to walk into that room alone. First of all, to admit that she should even be there, and that we needed to be there as well. Frankly, I don't know if there was someone Mom knew who took her to that first meeting. I hope there was. Knowing the nature of that group of people, I suspect there was someone walking her through this foggy space, I just don't remember.

There is so much I can say, too much for now, about the power of that sacred space. What bubbles up right now is the memory of sitting on folding chairs in a circle with other kids, none of whom we knew. There was an adult leading us, a gentle natured person. I can't remember anything about them, even if it was a man or a woman, old or relatively young. I just remember they made me feel safe. I also remember listening to the stories of the other kids sitting in the circle.

"Hi, my name is so-and-so, and I am the child of an alcoholic."

Everyone responded instantly with a "hello so-and-so." 

Around the circle we went, each kid telling their story. There is something kind of mind-blowing when you hear your own story, with different names and places, repeated over and over again. For a cluster of Mormon girls who thought their little world was wholly unique, shameful, and heavy on the secret vibes, this was new and refreshing.  

In each meeting, during the following weeks and months of Thursday nights, we stood together and recited the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I 

cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Serenity. Courage. Wisdom.

These words became as holy as the ten commandments to me. They remain so.

The part that's the hardest, for me at least, is the wisdom to know the difference. This is why I am such a fan of the Holy Spirit.

Ala-Teen gave ma a powerful set of tools. The most life changing were these:

I did not, and do not, get to own my father's addictions.

Nor do I get to hold the burden for the others affected by those addictions.

When you are, by nature, a fixer, the next mantra we recited became a commandment as well:

Let go, and let God.

Let God hold it. Let Jesus take the figurative wheel.

Let him figure out what part is mine, and what is not. I do not need to fix everything. 

'Thank you Bill W, the 12 step programs that still save souls from internal combustion, and the King of Kings, who said He would untangle the mess of humanness when we've grown enough to go Home.

He remains my one and only King, and I stumble at His holy feet.

This afternoon we marched in protest to 
a leader who takes his position as if he were king.
This is one of the signs we carried.

My people.