Delivery: Exquisite "Oneings"

My humanities class this semester required a creativity project. The teacher wanted us to create using a medium we aren't used to using. Poetry is a new medium I've used only twice and with no formal training, so I chose that. I felt to put more thought into the structure and words of the poem shared here in July and completely reworked it. (I'll post the new version below.) As I've spent more time with the poem, I've realized:

On a micro level this poem relates a personal experience unique to my life, but on a macro level I see it now as a symbol of our universal struggle of shedding the ego--even a form of ego as seemingly innocuous as wanting what we think God wants for us (to do or be). A favorite essay by CS Lewis, Weight of Glory, states with powerful imagery: 

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak... like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

This shedding of the ego and trusting God's ways and goals is often referred to as a rebirth; giving our life to God, being changed by God. Through the experience related in the following poem, my perspective of what spiritual rebirth must feel like or look like has changed. It is no longer a culminating event that ends a process. It is many moments of delivery--exquisite and costly threads--that God weaves together, changing the fabric of our lives thread by thread. 

I no longer see delivery as getting what we want, or being delivered from what we don't want. I see it as engaging in a journey where we become a child--a child who struggles through the narrow mazes and trials of life seeking their God (like a baby's journey through the birth canal seeking it's source of life).

When we emerge, we find our lonely desert has become the garden of the Lord (Isaiah 51:3). It is like the moment of birth when a mother's agony is turned to joy (John 16:21), or perhaps more accurately, as a baby must feel after such a journey of struggle and sorrow that quickly turns exquisitely sweet because of the embrace from those hands "stretched out still" that have "caught us" as we emerge, embraced us, at-oned with us. 

I've quoted it here before, but it deserves a repeat, at least in part: 

We are aware that all our mothers give us birth only to pain and dying; and what is it but that our true Mother Jesus, He--all love--gives us birth to joy and to endless life. Blessed may He be! Thus He carries us within Himself in love, and labors until full term so that He could suffer the sharpest throes and the hardest birth pains that ever were or ever shall be, and die at the last. And when He had finished, and so given us birth to bliss, not even all this could satisfy His wondrous love.

Again, I am learning that rebirth appears to be moments of struggle, sometimes as intense as child birth, followed by equally exquisite "oneings" with the Lord. And I imagine the supreme goal of existence as an eternity of that at-one-ment with God; that fullness of joy in their presence. 

The atonement is not a commodity. It is not an event long ago that somehow affects us now. It is a divine being; our Savior, full of infinite love and wisdom whose actions and love make it possible to have a relationship with him. A relationship which, if we choose to nourish, will slowly align us and change us to become more and more like him. And the reason? Not so we can achieve some commodity (eternal life of riches, power etc.). He loves us into the kind of person he is so that he can be with us for eternity in a celestial glory full of celestial beings who don't have to hold anything back. They can give us all of their self without such intense Light and Glory harming us because of how Christ’s love has prepared us and slowly recreated us to be like them. I believe thats what is meant by John when he says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

Before I paste the poem below, I'm going to be lazy and not remove the numbers in parentheses. To give the poem some unity and structure, I decided to use a kind of numeric symbolism in the lines and stanzas. This being titled "Labor and Delivery," the number nine is significant. So is seven, as a number of creation. So is four as a number symbolizing strength and truth. So are ascending and descending numbers (and the numbers they start and end with). I put the numbers into the poem for the paper I had to write about the creativity process for my class. I imagine it might be helpful for some to leave them here. 

Lastly, I would leave you with one more thought. When we wonder why God has not yet given us desires we consider to be righteous or that we believe are according to his will, perhaps we should consider what C.S. Lewis suggests: our desires are "too weak." To have a husband or wife, a good job, children or more children, to be healed, to have others see us truthfully, to be at peace--all these desires pale in comparison, or are actually encapsulated and fulfilled in what the Lord wants to give us: at-one-ment with Himself. So he works gradually, knowing "as the poet recognized, sometimes, God’s grace, like light, “must dazzle gradually, or every eye be blind.'" (Emily Dickinson, quoted here) 

Labor and Delivery

Labor

Sunday

Severing pain asks a sacrifice. (9)

Needles, tubes, sterile sheets, monitors: (9)

breathless upon the altar, I writhe.  (9)

For me, there is no ram in (7)

the thicket. No angel (6)

stops the knife that stabs (5)

three times and steals (4)

the soul—all (3)

labors: (2)

lost. (1)

Monday

Eyes are open, heart raw, but beating. (9)

Salty tears flow too freely for a (9)

disconnected womb--oh! Dear Father! (9)

Why lead me by miracles (7)

to the Red Sea shore’s edge (6)

and part the waters (5)

as I walk through (4)

only to (3)

let hope (2)

drown? (1)

Tuesday

Bitter. Left at the foot of dead ends, (9)

anger opens in this closing heart. (9)

I cannot choose: a false god; no God. (9)

There is a God— (4)

I've heard Him weep. (4)

I know His pow’r: (4)

enabling grace. (4)

By Light we live, (4)

By Him we're changed. (4)

Impossible maze! I cannot choose: (9)

an indifferent God; a cruel God. (9)

He called to me; (4)

Woke me; asked me: (4)

“Open the door.” (4)

He provided, (4)

assured, sustained; (4)

soothed each loss… (4)

Yet now life’s open door must (7)

sever from its hinges? (6)

Now, He let’s life stray— (5)

lets life bulge, bleed, (4)

burst—‘till they (3)

stitch it (2)

shut? (1)

Then call me Mara, for today I (9)

choose to see the bitter hand dealt me. (9)

While friends and family choose (7)

to call me blessed... and oh! (7)

The words they send, (4)

the meals they bring, (4)

the gifts that come: (4)

prints to color, (4)

Boxes to hit, (4)

Roses, posies, (4)

daisies, lilies, (4)

books, texts, posts, hugs. (4)

What was emptied, (4)

they seek to fill. (4)

Wednesday

fatigue 

sorrow

lights off

eyes shut

head down

heavy sleep

let me sleep

buried

in sleep

no dreams

to think

no thoughts

of life

within

while… (1)

without, (2)

children live; (3)

by my side their (4)

voices call and hands (5)

caress, lips kiss, hearts care, (6)

and all their eyes are watching. (7)

And so I wake (4)

my mind’s desire (4)

to understand— (4)

write what I know, (4)

ask all I don’t (4)

And oh! The Light (4)

rushes in with (4)

a choice revealed: (4)

It was not a loss. 

It was a birth:

of sorrow and pain,

grief and anguish

now remembered no more...

Delivery

... for joy that the impossible maze (9)

widens and opens as a child (8)

sobs into the Light caught by (7)

Hands stretched out still embraced (6)

by Love and nourished (5)

by unspoken (4)

Words of Life. (3)

Labor and Delivery

Follow this link for the updated version of this poem. 

Labor

Sunday: severing pain and surgery--a thief in the night.

I choose: to scream and to pray, as I lay upon the altar.

but there is no ram in the thicket
no angel stops the knife
that stabs three times
and robs me of all future labors

Monday: salty tears flow freely and often for an empty, aching womb.

I choose: to live, to hurt, to cry:

why lead me by miracles
to the edge of the Red Sea
and part the waters
if only to let them crash upon me?

Tuesday: aching heart and open anger--an impossible maze.

I can't choose: an indifferent God; no God; a cruel God.

I have heard the God who Weeps.
I know of supernal comfort.
I have been embraced by divine love.

I cannot choose: human error.

He called to me.
He asked me open the door.
He provided a way. He healed each loss.
Now he lets the door
sever from its hinges;
lets them stitch it shut?

So call me Mara,
for today I choose to see
the bitter hand dealt to me.

While friends and family choose to give me sweets,
and flowing days of food,
flowers to brighten,
boxes to hit,
words to comfort,
pictures to color
and love
and love
and love.

Wednesday: fatigue and sorrow.
I choose: the forgetfulness of sleep. Forever.

But my husband seeks me, wakes me, cuddles me, cares for me again and again.
So I wake.
I choose to write.
I allow myself to yearn; to understand; to untangle.
I write, I ponder, I rewrite, I pull the thoughts apart; I untangle.
When I cannot see further,
I ask.

Delivery

The maze falls to pieces as a child
sobs into the Light
caught by hands
stretched out still
embraced by Love
nourished with
sacred Words of
Life.

It was not a loss.
It was a birth:
of grief
and pain
and sacrifice--
For this child
now at rest in His love.
As I am.

One comfort is to be found in a God whose power is in His magnanimity as well as His wisdom. These two traits mean that His divine energies are spent not in precluding chaos but in reordering it, not in preventing suffering but in alchemizing it, not in disallowing error but in transmuting it into goodness... God's power and promise is in His capacity to transmute our suffering--and our faithful response to painful predicaments-- 

into something beautiful.

 Terryl and Fiona Givens, The Crucible of Doubt, p.78-79

Connect the Dots...

Confession to my husband: I bought a bunch of digital books today. It's your birthday tomorrow, but you won't be home. You're even out of cell phone range. I'll spoil you when you return. Today, out of loneliness, with you and half the children gone--and to avoid what I should write, but don't feel ready to--I splurged on...

1. A collection of modern religious poetry in support of a blogger I recently discovered. It was only $3. And so far these parts have that hum to them I keep looking for. Maybe they'll help me get my writing to hum again?

from "Christmas Eve" by James Goldberg

...But Mary's brain has been flooded, washed

clean out, by the work of tending

her inside:

a secret place,

where her son can rest his head--

immersed in her water,

nourished by her blood.

If she can carry him

another mile

another hour

past just one more closed inn door,

then tonight

That great and terrible moment will come 

when he bursts forth into this world

to teach us all 

how to be born.

Midwives I've been reviewing come to mind. 

Parts like this wink at me, so I underline...

"Ghazal"

... Faith was the beam I removed--and went blind
You had to wash the clearness out with mud so I could see again. 


"Nephi's Vision" 
(as sung by Johnny Cash)

... Yes, I've felt the white-hot heat that forged 
this iron rod I hold.

Oh, I've seen plates of fire God made 
to refine these plates of gold.

Went and asked God for a vision--
and an angel said, Behold:

The future's filled with a fire, son, 
to refine your plates of gold.


Plates of gold. What of mine? Still in the fire...

2. Then I turned to the monthly Mentoring in the Classics audios and study guides that have been building up in my files ready to catch up on when a nudge comes like today. Nathan started reading Louis L'Amour. This month the classic pic is L'Amour's Bendigo Shafter. So I downloaded it on my kindle app. Makes me miss my Naynay who is away, helping you. I read a review that said the main character is "one of the best male role models in literature. He's the type of man you want to raise your son to be... he's not perfect... just a man responding to his life course and making adjustments as events necessitate." I thought of you. Made me miss you more. 

Here's what I highlighted today:

Ruth Macken had a way of making a man feel large in his tracks, so what could I do but better than my best? (p.6)

To destroy is easy, to build is hard. To scoff is also easy, but to go on in the face of scoffing and to do what is right is the way of a man. (p.7)

        The westward way had a different effect on folks, and many of them grew in size and gathered in spirit. John Sampson was such a man. Back home in the States he had been the village handyman, and nobody paid much mind to what he thought about anything. He did his work and he took his pay, and that was the sum of it. Folks turned to teachers, ministers, storekeepers, and bankers for opinions. But once you got out away from home on a wagon train, a minister or a banker wasn't much help; a handyman could keep your wagon rolling...
       ...When we crossed the Mississippi and rolled out over the grass lands some folks were scared of the size of it all. Miles of grass stretched on all sides, the vast bowl of the sky was overhead, and there were a few who turned around and ran for home, their tails between their legs. There were others, like John Sampson, who began to grow and to take big steps in the land. Webb grew, too, but in another way. There had always been a streak of violence in him, but fear of public opinion and fear of the law had toned it down. Now a body could see the restraint falling away...
      ...We accepted danger but took no unnecessary risk. It is a fool who invites trouble, a child who is reckless, for life holds risks enough without reaching out for more. (p.12)

What would we do on a wagon train if we left it all and started anew, AD? Maybe it would be like it is now: 

You'd play on one of your good violins, 

I'd steal it to practice on, pretending I can play, 

Then you'd steal it back and sell it to someone,

Then bring out a better one,

Before leaving for the week to sell the good ones,

While I practice on the better one,

Thinking of you.

3. Lastly, I bought a book we already have: Bonds that make us Free. Digital this time. Don't worry. It was only $6 since I had points to redeem. I Couldn't find our hardcover. Must have lent it out. (Anyone out there have mine?) I suggested to a friend we read it together and discuss. I promised it was all about her life right now. I secretly hope it will do what it has for so many: bring freedom. And maybe a Bendigo Shafter? But first, I hope it teaches her how to be free. Free of anxiety. Free of fear. Free of walls. Free of pain. I haven't started reading it yet (since the first time years ago). So I scan quickly to find something that hums, winks, or nudges me. Ah... 

Freedom:

    

...an older, very concerned woman raised an issue about forgiveness... "If you forgive somebody, you more or less say, 'There's something that person needs to be blamed for, something he's done wrong to me, but I'm a big enough person to overlook it.' You have to keep in mind what they've done wrong or else you don't have anything to overlook. So you can't forgive and forget, can you? You have to remember the wrong they've done. That doesn't seem to be very charitable. So I don't understand forgiveness. I've always been suspicious when people say they forgive... 

This woman was right to say that we do not, we cannot, accuse someone in our heart and at the same time forget about the wrong we're accusing them of doing. The best we can do, as long as we continue to accuse, is to counterfeit a pardon for them and try our best not to think about what they have done. But overlooking or "letting pass" a grievance or an offense does not qualify as forgiveness. Forgiveness is something else entirely.  

First, forgiveness responds to the real issue, the real reason... [it] is not any wrong that others have done to us, but the wrong we are doing to them. Forgiveness concerns our wrongdoing, not theirs. And our wrongdoing includes our failure to treat them as we ought, or finding them at fault for this failure, and our refusal to forgive them for this supposed fault.  

Second, our act of forgiving consists of repenting of this wrongdoing of ours, or in other words, ceasing to accuse those we have been accusing. 

Third, when we cease to accuse them, we cease to feel there's anything on their part that needs to be forgiven! We no longer find them offensive. We see that from their point of view they are struggling against perceived offenses and threats just as we have been.  

Thus forgiveness involves opening ourselves to the truth, letting our former offenders become real to us, and no longer believing there is anything for us to forgive. As they undergo a transformation in our forgiving eyes, we undergo a transformation ourselves. 

This must be so. As long as we see others as needing our forgiveness, we will continue regarding ourselves as their victim and will remain accusing still. We live free of the bondage of accusing, afflicted feelings only by ceasing to find and take offense...  

Of all the initiatives people can take who feel a devastating wrong has made them miserable, one stands above all others in effectiveness. It is actually seeking forgiveness for having refused to forgive.

I begin to think, dearest, that the rabbit trails of the day had some order to them. 

I like to see the bigger picture. Not just dots. 

So I begin to connect the dots. I put them down on "paper" and look for the invisible lines in-between. 

And I see some connections. I feel the bigger picture coming. I needed this. I had been trying to draw the picture without the dots. That's fine when you know what the bigger picture is suppose to become. But I don't yet. 

So I get dots. 
I need more dots. 
And I need to write them down. 

How does anyone see those greater things--the macro things--without recording the dots? I'll never know. Maybe they won't either. 

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.

Words That Move Me - Thinking Generationally

It must be November. I feel it rising - that feeling of thanksgiving. It was this month I entered the world almost 32 years ago. I woke this morning many hours before my alarm with thoughts of gratitude. I come to the computer to write words that flood my mind, but before I do, the Little Red Poem Book calls to me from the glass table next to the sofa. What was it we read the other day? Ah, yes. I'll include you, too.

   

       Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
      But we build the ladder by which we rise
      From the lowly earth, to the vaulted skies,
      And we mount to its summit round by round.

I look at the rung my hands are holding this morning. I don't have to look far to realize I did not get here in one single bound. But it doesn't always make sense, the way the rungs twist and turn beneath me. Because of Clair Rasmussen's death on a motorcycle, his daughter would make course corrections that put her on the path to meet my father. They raised us (five little climbers) upon the values they had learned from those before them. Because of Barbara and Clair, my mother raised us with a passion and determination for strong relationships. Because of Mary and Chuck, my father knew how to work hard to provide for his children, but he also made sure to genuinely enjoy when there was time to play - his father's illness having taught him what it was like when your dad couldn't. Because of my mom's childhood of moving we were taught at home so a move wouldn't hurt so much. Then, ironically, we only moved two blocks our whole childhood.

Together, they chose the soundtrack to the "Circle Game" of our lives - Grand Canyon Suite, Peer Gynt, Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and a little James Taylor and Joni Mitchell sprinkled in. It was an idyllic childhood.

I count this thing to be grandly true:
      That a noble deed is a step toward God,
      Lifting the soul from the common clod
To a purer air and a broader view.

I look and see the rungs that race down through the ladder of time and I am struck by the realization: I stand on the choices of generations before me. My mom calls it a football game. Each generation takes the ball down the field a little farther. Some lose ground, the next generation picks it up and moves it down the field. Some generations make touchdowns - there are many that need to be made. We can't see how far we've come unless we see where they started; can't appreciate another's success if we don't realize the "yard" where their journey began.

 We rise by the things that are under feet;

 By what we have mastered of good and gain;

Under my feet are the rungs trod by past generations. Anything I master is because they first mastered the "yard" before. Any gain, is a gain built upon their gain or loss.

      By the pride deposed and the passion slain,

"Pride" triggers a story as I glance downward through time: Great-Grandpa Ras (I've posted about him before HERE) was being interviewed by Bruce R. McConkie before the latter was an apostle. McConkie asked him what he would do if he were given a certain position of leadership. Ras answered sincerely what he'd try to do and be. McConkie quickly cut in with something like, "Well, I didn't say we had called you, brother, don't assume the position already!" I listen to McConkie's talks now and can imagine the tone of voice.  My grandpa's reply? "Well, you know what you can do with that, bub!" and he walked out. 

Rulon Rasmussen ("Ras"), second from the left.

Ras told the story later in life, regretting his pride. I think of where he started. How he worked for his own clothing and necessities when he was as little as six years old. How he mastered the trumpet so well, he was invited to live in California to study with a renown teacher and performed in popular big bands. How he gave it up to come home and marry Velma before another man could snatch her away. How he became a top manager of Sears Roebuck. He had pride, yes. But he learned. He moved the ball down the field. He gave all he had to his wife, his son and grandchildren.  I carry the memory of his smile and grateful hug each morning when I'd give him his breakfast he humbly let me make for him.

 And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

I look back another rung. Ras married Velma. Velma's father, Charles, struggled with depression. I see the dates on the family pedigree and go back farther. Charles' mother had died giving birth to him, her mother had died giving birth to her while crossing the plains. Two generations of entering life with that kind of loss - severed from the one who could have suckled you, nurtured you. Who filled in that hole? Or did the hole remain? How does that affect you? Where did you start on the "generational football field," Charles? 

     We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,
      When the morning calls us to life and light,
      But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night,
     Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

When you hung yourself on Christmas Eve, Charles, leaving your four children and your wife pregnant with great-aunt Sally, leaving my great-grandmother fatherless at an age younger than my youngest now - how far had you traveled before you chose to lay the ball on the field? It might have been quite far. I cannot know.

 What ills did your wife, Mary Elizabeth, hourly meet that Christmas?  Did she find courage in the fact that her mother had managed being a widow with nine children ages 2-19? 

(Widow) Mary Ann Berrett Chard with her nine children. Mary Elizabeth back row far right.

Or did that make it harder to bear knowing the challenges that awaited you? Neither Mary or her mother ever remarried from the records available to me. How did they do it alone?

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray. . .
      We may borrow the wings to find the way —
      We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray;
But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

I have walked the ladder of my history this morning. I have examined some rungs below my feet. There are still so many ladders that branch beneath me, though. I feel I stand on holy ground, this rung in my hand, that one under my feet. I have not come to this rung on my own.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown
      From the weary earth to the sapphire walls;
      But the dreams depart, and the vision falls,
And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

 "And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. . . and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee . . ." (Genesis 28:10-15)

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
      But we build the ladder by which we rise
      From the lowly earth, to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit, round by round.
                                     "Gradatim", by Josiah Gilbert Holland

As I look down the ladder and see the game of life that has played out before me, there are only very small words that fail to describe profound feelings: Curiosity. Awe. Love. Gratitude. And a new perspective. I begin to realize that the rungs on the ladder are relationships. Jacob was on his way to find a wife when he had that dream. Also, I see how I bring into this life spiritual and physical traces of my ancestors. I worry like Barbara, Alice and Luna. I look like the Pedersen side - especially Luna and Mabel. Get my allergies from Velma. My joint pain from Luna. I play like Martin? Like Ras? I compose like Olof? I analyze like . . .? I teach like. . . ? I love like . . . ?

It isn't so mysterious then, why when conquering a weakness, I feel almost as if someone unseen rejoices with me. Do I carry the ball they carried on the field years ago? Or maybe we carry it together; feel relief together when that ball finally reaches a touchdown?

What will I hand to my posterity? Where were my ancestors climbing to? Am I moving in the right direction? Were they? I'm finding answers . . .

"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

 (Malachi 4:6)

" . . . For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect . . . the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children . . . For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died . . .  How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion:

Behold, thy God reigneth!

(D&C 128:15,19)