Small Offering

Let us Liken: 

 "... seek learning even by study and also by faith." (D&C 109:7)

I do not believe we learn some things by study and other things by faith. I believe true learning--the kind that changes us and is part of our becoming--is both. The connecting word in the scripture is "also" not "or."

When we say we have faith, we are really speaking of faith in Christ. It helps me, therefore, to think of learning by faith as learning by Christ. It is centering the compass of our mind in him. It is qualifying and inviting Him to become our mentor (through the Holy Ghost) in a personal, individualized, intimate way.

When I feel moments of curiosity it is like I'm feeling a question being asked of me by the Spirit. Just as any good teacher might ask leading questions, all these little curiosities are not separate subjects, but are often linked to deeper questions that come ever closer to the "point" the Spirit of Christ eventually teaches me.

I take those curiosities, like puzzle pieces, and save and gather them. Then, by study, I analyze, weigh, and consider how such pieces of revelation fit together to make a complete and whole understanding. Each puzzle that is completed changes me. By faith I gather, by study I connect. But it is all made possible because of Christ. 

And beyond all our discoveries in his words and being, there lie depths within depths of truth that we cannot understand, and yet shall be ever going on to understand. Yea, even now sometimes we seem to have dim glimpses into regions from which we receive no word to bring away... Our advance from our former ignorance can measure but a small portion of the distance that lies, and must ever lie, between our childishness and his manhood, between our love and his love, between our dimness and his mighty vision. 

~ George MacDonald, "It Shall Not Be Forgiven," Unspoken Sermons, p.36

Beyond this small thought, two offerings--treasures I've discovered this week. "Liken" them if you like.

First,

Socrates: ... Consider, then, what being released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance would naturally be like... When one of them was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light, he'd be pained and dazzled and unable to see the things whose shadows he'd seen before. 

... anyone with any understanding would remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, namely, when they've come from the light into the darkness and when they've come from the darkness into light. Realizing that the same applies to the soul, when someone sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he won't laugh mindlessly, but he'll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brilliance... If that's true, then here's what we must think about these matters:

Education isn't what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes... But our present discussion, on the other hand, shows that the power to learn is present in everyone's soul and that the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body... 

Then education is the craft concerned with doing this very thing, this turning around, and with how the soul can most easily and effectively be made to do it. It isn't the craft of putting sight into the soul. Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn't turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately.  

~ from Plato, Allegory of the Cave

Second, 

God is forgiving us every day—sending from between him and us our sins and their fogs and darkness. Witness the shining of his sun and the falling of his rain, the filling of their hearts with food and gladness, that he loves them that love him not.  

When some sin that we have committed has clouded all our horizon, and hidden him from our eyes, he, forgiving us, ere we are, and that we may be, forgiven, sweeps away a path for this his forgiveness to reach our hearts, that it may by causing our repentance destroy the wrong, and make us able even to forgive ourselves. For some are too proud to forgive themselves, till the forgiveness of God has had its way with them, has drowned their pride in the tears of repentance, and made their heart come again like the heart of a little child.  

But, looking upon forgiveness, then, as the perfecting of a work ever going on, as the contact of God’s heart and ours, in spite and in destruction of the intervening wrong, we may say that God’s love is ever in front of his forgiveness. God’s love is the prime mover, ever seeking to perfect his forgiveness, which latter needs the human condition for its consummation. The love is perfect, working out the forgiveness. 

God loves where he cannot yet forgive—where forgiveness in the full sense is as yet simply impossible, because no contact of hearts is possible, because that which lies between has not even begun to yield to the besom of his holy destruction.  

... When a man’s evil is thus fading out of him, and he is growing better and better, that is the forgiveness coming into him more and more. Perfect in God’s will, it is having its perfect work in the mind of the man. When the man hath, with his whole nature, cast away his sin, there is no room for forgiveness any more, for God dwells in him, and he in God.

... It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice. It is spiritual murder, the worst, to hate, to brood over the feeling that excludes, that, in our microcosm, kills the image, the idea of the hated.  

... as far as we can, we quench the relations of life between us; we close up the passages of possible return. This is to shut out God, the Life, the One. For how are we to receive the forgiving presence while we shut out our brother from our portion of the universal forgiveness, the final restoration, thus refusing to let God be All in all? 

~ George MacDonald,“It Shall Not Be Forgiven,” Unspoken Sermons p.30-32

Morsels of Goodness

My left wrist's tendinitis I've been babying for over a year finally decided to call it enough. For the first time since 11th grade, I'm in a long-term brace again. Typing and playing music is reduced for the rest of the year. How grateful I am for music students and my children who give me the opportunity to still work with music. And thank you Mac for making a dictation tool on my laptop!  

This will be short and sweet. Morsel's of goodness that are nourishing my soul. First, a poem from a poet I have begun to discover:

Christine Rossetti, Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets, #5

Lord, Thou Thyself I love and only Thou;

Yet I who am not love would fain love Thee;

But Thou alone being Love canst furnish me 

With that same love my heart is craving now.

Allow my plea! for if Thou disallow, 

No second fountain can I find but Thee;

No second hope for help is left to me, 

No second anything, but only Thou.

Oh Love accept, according my request;

Oh Love exhaust, fulfilling my desire:

Uphold me with the strength that cannot tire, 

Nerve me to labor till Thou bid me rest, 

Kindle my fire from Thine unkindled fire, 

And charm the willing heart from out my breast.

This last morsel needs a little introduction. 

I have had a great desire growing in me over the year: to learn of the searches for truth great minds had embarked on and what they had discovered. I have also felt I needed to be accountable for such searching. So I acted upon this growing feeling last month and registered for classes.  I’ll be working on a second degree, this time in philosophy; one or two classes at a time, going slow and absorbing all I can. 

Then last week, I was at the bookstore purchasing a little book for a friend who had lost her mother recently. Sitting next to that book was another that called to me and I let it tag along to the cash register. 

And it has happened again! I felt a nudge. I acted upon it, and soon after, I am led to find beautiful words that express the feelings I could only feel and stumble to explain. I read them again today and feel such nourishment from truth that I would be greedy not to share it with my "neighbors." 

We will not be able to develop his heart within us with only a surface understanding of our fellow men—or with alienation because of difference, whatever the source of that dissimilarity. In this wonderful world of knowledge it is easy to learn. Is not this part of "the gathering"? We rightly call this age the "dispensation of the fullness of times." Notice that the phrase is plural—“times,” not “time.” We want all the best from every age and corner of the globe. 

… One day my teacher gave me a compass. It was a simple instrument with a sharp point on one leg and a pencil secured at the tip of the other. She showed me that by planting the pointed leg firmly and stretching out with the other leg, I could draw a perfect circle. 

… As I grew I was taught how to draw another circle by a divine teacher, one that encompassed truth, beauty, and goodness. The spiritual compass also has two feet—one I call “the fixed foot," and the other, "the searching foot." We all have this spiritual compass. 

… It took a good measure of spiritual maturity for me to realize that the great question of mortality was not really to find the one to church among all the false ones; rather it was to discover where truth and goodness and beauty had reached their most mature form and plant my fixed foot there. That is the critical starting point: Where will we place the fixed foot of our life's compass?  

There can be no true or complete circle without a center. 

… Placing the fixed foot is only half the task, not the whole of life's journey: We would draw the circle.  

…Truth is too grand to be found in such small dimensions. It is scattered around the world, God distributing his wonders as widely as the sower throwing grain. God would have the harvest cover the whole field. Light is given not only in the scriptures or through prophetic inspiration, but in multiple ways. Our Father in Heaven is a light–giving God and dispenses it as widely as the stars. 

… I have learned that there is a tremendous amount of truth we can circumscribe if we reach out with the searching foot. Is this not as important as planting the fixed foot? We need to get them in the right order, of course. We do not wish to go dancing on both feet through the offerings of the world, picking up bits and pieces of truth here and there without ever taking the time, energy of thought, and introspection to find our fixed point. There is a certain intellectual and spiritual laziness in that approach. Discovering the right midpoint will give us the best perspective of the whole, the broad view from the peak, the best chance of encompassing all truth and avoiding error. Remember you cannot draw a perfect circle without an immovable center point.  

… I believed that my Father in Heaven is a loving God toward all his children. My idea of him was often difficult to align with this rather limited understanding of his interaction with humankind. What of the Chinese? What of those in India? He speaks often of his voice penetrating even the isles of the sea. What about those during the centuries of darkness we call the Great Apostasy? Surely God would speak to humanity through every voice he could find. I firmly believe this. God has many voices. If we cannot hear his voice in that of a prophet or apostle, perhaps we can hear it in that of the sage, or a poet, or a philosopher, or playwright, or an artist. Their voices also find their roots in God. In time, I came to desire—to hunger for, really—these other voices. I sensed I would have to reach my searching foot far afield to bring them into my circle of understanding.  

That reach has made all the difference in my life and in my love of God.  

… Almost always in the Scriptures, light is interchangeable with truth. The light of Christ is his truth—that that which he has given us. With the light of Christ as our foundation, our point of planting, we are free to explore and encouraged to augment. 

… At times, I fear that we receive the Lord’s beautiful light only to continually gaze at it reverently. Is not the purpose of light to push back the darkness? Is it not to see with greater clarity? As the Psalms testify, light was given that we might see with it and discover new and enhancing truth… what I marvel at is how much God has accomplished with ordinary people who are also part of flawed humanity. We can't have pure Saints—or profits, apostle's, or holy man for that matter. We need to quit perpetuating the myth that they exist. 

… Other than Jesus Christ, imperfection has been true for Joseph Smith, Moses, Peter, President Thomas S. Monson, or any other scriptural personality or living leader. To believe otherwise is to deny humanity.… The greatest personalities are still part and parcel of their surrounding culture. 

… I repeat: God has many voices. I believe he desires to get as much goodness, beauty, and truth as he can into the lives and hearts and minds of the people of this world…. “Know ye not that there are more nations than one?” the Lord asked (2 Nephi 29:7). Let us answer, “Yea, Lord, we know. We have reached! We have searched!…”

               ~ S. Michael Wilcox, 10 Great Souls I want to Meet in Heaven, xv-11.

Walls

A mending wall went up and a friend of mine said to me recently, 

"God is at the helm."

Good fences make good neighbors. I guess it may be true at times, but I've never been fond of such "mending walls." 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, 

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather 

He said it for himself.

"God is at the helm."

It echoes in my ears.

The echo follows me this morning and I feel a nudge to open my old Dragonfly leather journal that Adam made for me years ago.  The evidence of God's guidance washes over me with a sweet peace.  

On one side of the journal's pages, I had recorded quotes from books, speeches and scriptures that influenced my life and resonated with me during the years I filled these pages. 

Every time I return to this journal, it feels like reading a manual of how God works in the life of his children. I feel not only the value of the quotes, but the wisdom behind the divine guidance. This is always confirmed by the memories, written between the lines, that come off the page. 

Flipping my journal around,  the other side of the pages is a record of "likenings" of scripture passages and experiences applying true principles to my life and their consequences. I never finished this side of the journal. It was more convenient to write most of those thoughts on a computer. Maybe someday I'll copy them in. Today, I reread those few that were written originally on the Dragonfly pages. When I get to the little poem, Beyond Walls I wrote last year, I am astonished. Here I was, a year ago, writing about a wall! Then again last month, I write about a wall. Now again, new layers of the wall reveal their self.

 Fascinating... how we think we understand the meaning of words - our own or others - only to find with new life experiences those words have deepened and changed. And what is it with me and walls? I must want them all down. Impatient: me. 

I'm reminded of the phrase, "mysteries of God." There are many scriptures that speak of the mysteries of God. I've heard many people describe how they are those things revealed by the Spirit. I've listened recently to speeches on the Gnostics and their take on those mysteries. 

I always thought those "mysteries" would be new ideas, new principles of how God works, or the works God has done that are hidden. That may still be true. But now it's more simple and more accessible: the mysteries of the kingdom are the deeper levels of understanding of the same simple words and principles we have heard maybe all our lives. Mysteries are hidden layers of something that's always been before us. Words like:

Faith

Unbelief

Veil

Grace

Light

Present Moment

Presence

Fullness

Eye of Faith

In this mortal world, we try to use these words and others to describe the indescribable. Those words become the visible or audible layer of a million-layered  communication. When we read or hear just the words, we miss the deeper meanings, implications, applications, emotions, power... the million other layers merely represented by the words chosen. 

 I'm beginning to understand now: The only way we'll begin to know the "mystery" of those missing layers is through learning and becoming familiar with that invisible language buried in our soul: the language of the Spirit of God. It is the only language that can convey those layers. There is no translation that's accurate and full. No short-cut. It's a language learned by obedience and faith more than study. Immersion, not memorization enhances our fluency. Music helps me learn that language, I find. 

But I'm slow. Sometimes a word takes years just to begin to understand. Like those walls.

I read a few days ago, "[It] is called “unbelief” in the scriptures. It is not necessarily an absence of faith, and can coexist with faith quite companionably. But, it is nevertheless an effective, and often long-lived, damnation of our faith."

Unbelief and faith can coexist. That is a deeper layer of my wall. Something isn't right with the last paragraph of this poem now... reaching is no longer the right action. It's now more like... what? I keep erasing what I type.  It is too much a mystery to describe with words. I'm left to ponder what I wrote last year, linking words to deeper layers...

BEYOND WALLS

 

Pull me outside my little self, Lord.
Grasp my reaching hands in thine,
Stretched out still.

Walls close in.
Only when minds do.
I know this.

The world is bigger then
Scientific methods and laboratories.
The sphere that envelopes the
One my natural eyes see -
It is that sphere that inspired
The methods,
The math,
The mechanics

Of this little sphere.

The crumb that falls to the ground

An ant may discover and be nourished by,
But it is only a portion, not

All there is.
Only all there is in his world.

Scarcity or abundance?
Seek no more for crumbs, but
For Sources.
No more for applications, but
For Truths.

If the walls of my little box are
Solid and shut - Open them!
This is the Present moment.
And the present thing to do:
Find that Presence within.
Again.
Every Present Moment.

But I am weak.
I can make but a crack;
A sliver of an opening in the
Wall of my natural world.
And when that crack
 Shrinks and closes! Oh! How the
 Darkness chills me.
It is by my own hand.
Pitiful woman.

Reach!
Stretch. . . pry,
Knock!
Yearn. . .

I see His hand stretched outward
As I peer through the sliver in the wall
Made by these actions of thought.

Smile,
Call a sister,
Listen,
Laugh,
Read,
Learn.

The sliver grows and swells,
Rays from the Son warm my brow.
Such Abiding Light is
Not sourced from my little sphere -
It is beyond my walls.
Reach!

Love,
Write,
Comfort,
Nourish,
Give...

Light is imparted. There is a
Window in my wall,
Enlightening; filling my soul with joy.
I can see the real again.
More or less than true is chased away.
I can breath. I am covered:
In love. In light.

If only I could burst these walls!
Turn this reaching into an embrace,
Into Fullness. Union with the Source.

But for now:
Enlightening Joy-
Leading actions that are good,
Illuminating paths to walk humbly,
Guiding ways to judge righteously.

Keep it Kate.
It is yours to choose,
There are not two ways!
There is One Way in
One Present Moment.

Or there is darkness.
Dwarves sitting in a circle of sarcasm -
Manna like manure to their lips.
The darkness is in their eyes,
Not in the world of beauty and light that
Surrounds them,
Covers them.

The Lion chooses no power over
A man's agency.
His power is Love.
He
Is love,
The greatest power.
The Force stronger then gravity,
That chooses not to force.

Dwarves don't choose the Real.
Don’t know Real Love.
It is beyond their walls and they
Will not reach.

Imagined Kings and Queens,
Choose,

Know,
Reach.

I choose.

I reach.

I will know The Real, and
The Real in me will
Recognize the false,

Circling in opposition.

One Day, walls will not
Keep me from that Embrace.
One day, by one day -
I knock and pry at these walls.
In this Present Moment,

I Reach.

NEW! Arbor Music Program

It's official!  Beginning August 4th I will be implementing the Arbor Music Program in my piano studio. In this post HERE I spoke of the nudge to teach students on an easy come-whenever-you-want, pay-as-you-go policy. The experience was incredibly eye-opening and changed my perspective as a teacher forever.

Near the end of this last Spring, I had a light-bulb moment. An idea blossomed as I sat down to my computer and wrote and planned out what I'd often wondered how to do: how to design a studio to give that same agency and freedom to my students they were now experiencing so they owned their music journey, but also offer more structure, accountability and intensity for advancing students who wanted and needed it. I also wanted to design better options for adult beginners.

The Arbor Music Program is the result of pondering that question (for years now) and finally sitting down to do the work to plan it out.  I guess it helped that I felt ready to increase the hours I mentor each week, too. :-)

CLICK HERE to read a quick summary of how it works. And, if you live in the Salt Lake Valley, (or are willing to drive there for lessons), I've solidified my current students needs and have openings for a few more. Follow the links on the Piano Mentoring page to contact me.

Dick and Jane on the Radio

I know many people who have a desire to learn a language that I've become fluent in.  It's not their native tongue.  In fact, it's a language that is so foreign to some people that they don't even realize it's a language.  And yet it's so familiar that they are exposed to it on a daily basis.

Mommy, Come Play - Part 2

In  part 1 of this post, I shared my response to the comment "You homeschool?  I could never do that!" I also stated that I had begun to see a connection between that comment and two others that I hear frequently: "What age should I start my child in music lessons? and "I wish I never stopped playing the piano." 
I've wrestled for months with this post.  Rather than try to describe what I'm feeling, I've decided first to "show" you what I'm feeling by sharing what are becoming common experiences with my children. 

(Part 3 discusses specific ideas to implement in music practice with your children)
 

It all started many years ago when I actually applied with my first two children, the answers I used to give parents as a music "professional."  Not just when to "start" music, but how to practice, when to practice, how often to practice etc. The results . . . well, they prompted me to begin asking other questions. The answers I found have changed my perspective, my purposes, and my approach.

And it has changed the results.

Opposition in all things

I've been trying to help Ellie understand algebra; that an equation is like a balance scale.  It struck me as I described to her how what we do to one side of the equation we must do to the other, the real-life side of math.  Math is suppose to represent the real world, but until recently, I never really thought of how it can or does.

 There is a scripture that says, "For it must needs be that there is opposition in all things." (2 Nephi 2:11).  Today, the truth of that statement shimmered.  It caught my attention and came to life as I thought of current life experiences; like I had a macro view of my life as one big algebra equation.

In a math equation, to find what is true about an unknown, we isolate that unknown variable through the use of what could be called opposition, right?  If something is being added to the unknown number, we subtract on both sides. If something is being multiplied to it, we divide on both sides. That opposition clarifies or makes known truth.

A Good Cry

There are good times to cry. More importantly, good times to cry with your children.  I re-learned that this last weekend while spending a Saturday lying low and doing my little routine that keeps encroaching viruses away.

A little background color first. For the second year in a row, we've done Christmas a little differently.  One Christmas a few years back, my side of the family decided to forgo gifts for adults and instead only get gifts for the children. This had the unexpected result of many more gifts for the kids than usual. Watching my children rip through present after present and not know what to do with it all (and later see many things get forgotten or lost) left a lasting impression. I tried something different the next year.

The change in our tradition has come to be called The Seven Days of Christmas. Basically, we have 7 family nights that we do on random nights in December. They each have a theme (like "Popcorn and Puzzles",  "Books and Blankets", "Fleece and a Film" or "Toys and a Treasure hunt") and begin with carols at the piano and/or a Christmas story or message before opening one present per person or for the whole family that has an activity to go with it. The month starts with the more selfish gifts/activities (like opening their toy gift after a treasure hunt) and as Christmas gets closer becomes smaller family gifts or service projects until there is only stockings on Christmas morning. For instance, one of the later activities was when after singing, I brought out fleece that we tied for Primary Children's Hospital while watching It's a Wonderful Life. This is a Kate version of things, mind you, so besides the one day to decide the themes and buy the gifts, I kind of made it up as I went.

I've love it because we get time to cherish each gift that we give to our children; to play, read and sing with them; to slow down the Christmas season and create lasting memories where the focus stays on relationships with each other and with the Savior. 

(I just realized you may be saying to yourself, what happened to Santa!?  Well, that started with my grandma and is too tricky a subject for me to tackle here. Suffice it to say that Santa is like Cupid, St. Patrick or ghosts at Halloween - background images that flash my children at the grocery store or in the media, but have little part in our family traditions. Honestly, my children probably believe in ghosts more from the stories of their father's youth than Santa Clause :).

There were some glitches to my plans of course. I had to be away for the first night so the treasure hunt didn't happen and on the "Books and Blankets" night the kids were so excited about making a tent (hence the "blankets") to read their new books in together that they begged and pleaded until I finally let them make a tent ahead of time. By the time the last book arrived from Amazon so we could do the activity, the tent had been slept in three nights and put away to make room for family events. I told you - I made it up as I went.

That's where last Saturday comes in.  As I lay in bed that morning, circled by my books that I had just begun to study, my only son surprised me by coming in and asking if I'd read The Island of the Blue Dolphins to him.  It was one of the books I'd purchased for the Christmas night that didn't happen. I'd been reading it to the girls in their room and he'd heard a little and wanted more.  I told him sure, if he let the girls know so they could listen, too. 

 As I began to read with my two oldest Daysies gathered on the bed and the younger ones in and out, weaving the story into their pretend play, I thought back on the days I still remember gathered with my siblings around my mother in this very same house - even at times this very room.  Like we did then, my children wouldn't let me stop after a chapter, but begged me on and on. We ended up reading the rest of the book right there.  Also like when I was little, it proved to be an activity that bound us more deeply together.  

Nathan loves being read to, but has yet to learn to love reading himself.  I was grateful, then, for the timing of this experience. Through much of the last 50 pages of the book I was a wreck. At first, Nathan regarded my tears with curiosity - it wasn't a new thing to see mom crying while reading a book, but this time he was involved in the story, too.  We were experiencing it together. Little House on the Prairie and C.S. Lewis Chronicles hadn't explored emotions this deep. Nathan began to snuggle up a little closer. Then to turn toward the window. I was pretty sure the movement coming from his body was a sob or two. When 3/4 of the book was read I had to stop as my voice was too choked with emotion to go on without stopping for a good cry.  I realized that I was right, Nathan had already joined me and I stroked his back as he shyly tried to muffle his cries in the pillow next to me. Elise comforted us and brought us tissue.  "Books can be powerful things, can't they Naynay?" I said. He replied with a reverent "yes" between quiet sobs. 

I think the power of a book is increased when reading it aloud with people you love.  It would be impossible to describe what happened to us in my room that day or what we shared, but it was nothing like crying over a movie together. 

I felt like my life experiences were woven into the story - not that I am like the young woman the story described, but that my relationships and my experiences all informed the experience of reading that book. It wasn't what I got out of the book, but what it pulled from me. Like a mirror showing me what I contain inside and turning it out for display.  And instead of examining what I found on my own, I got to go on the journey with my children. They got to examine with me and we learned things about each other there are very few ways to learn otherwise.  It was a good book.  It was a good cry.