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)

A Study in Light and Love

"And then our Lord opened my spiritual eye and showed me my soul in the midst of my inner self. I saw my soul as large as if it were an endless world and as if is were a blessed kingdom; and by the circumstances I saw in it I understood that it is an honorable City. In the midst of that City sits our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man... And in this He showed the delight that He has in the creating of man's soul... And thus I understood truly that our soul can never have rest in things that are beneath itself [in the earth]... The highest light and the brightest shining of the City is the glorious love of our Lord as I see it." ~ Julian of Norwich (The Complete Julian, Chapter 67)

"And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness. That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you..." (D&C 50:23-25)

"As we learn in these scriptures, the fundamental purposes for the gift of agency were to love one another and to choose God. Thus we become God’s chosen and invite His tender mercies as we use our agency to choose God." ~ David A. Bednar, LDS General Conference, April 2005. 

 "So was I taught to choose Jesus for my heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that time. I desired no other heaven than Jesus, who shall be my bliss when I come there. And this has ever been a comfort to me: that I chose Jesus for my heaven, by His grace, in all this time of suffering and sorrow. And that had been a learning for me that I should evermore do so, choosing only Jesus for my heaven in well and woe." ~ Julian of Norwich (Chpt. 19)

"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.... As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 

AnnieHenrie.com

... If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." ~ John 15:4-5, 9-12

"And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things,which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things. 

...He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him,and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever." ~ D&C 88:11-13, 41

Love is a conduit of light. The greater the love, the greater impartation of light, the greater capacitating power to absorb truth and grow in spiritual intelligence; the greater increase in glory. 

God's love is the sun by which we grow into our divine potential. His truth is the living water. This earth with the dunging, digging, and pruning we experience is the soil and garden we have been lovingly planted in to grow and progress. 

"And He gave me knowledge truthfully that it was He who showed me everything before... and said most sweetly: 'Be well aware that it was no raving that thou sawest today, but accept it, and believe it, and keep thyself in it, and comfort thyself with it, and trust thyself to it, and thou shalt not be overcome.'  

"These last words were said to teach true certainty that it is our Lord Jesus who showed me everything. ... And all this teaching and this true comfort is universal for all my fellow Christians as was said before--and this is God's will... 

"He said not, 'Thou shalt not be tempted; thou shalt not be troubled; thou shalt not be distressed,' but He said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.' God wills that we take heed to these words, and that we be very strong in certain trust, in well and in woe, for as He loves and delights in us, so He wills that we love Him and delight in Him and strongly trust in Him; and all shall be well."  

 ~ Julian of Norwich (Chpt. 68)

Watch Excerpt "Abide in Me" by Jeffrey R. Holland

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.

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

Thoughts on a Summer Night

My six-year-old Daysie wanted to read Ruth as part of her nightly tuck-in. So we have been. Then, Samuel was next. Each time, we read a little before she asks me, "So mommy, tell me what that means?" She has this love and trust in the words and messages of scripture and a desire to read them that is breathtaking and beautiful.

Last night, we read 1 Samuel 2 and I couldn't help but read the first ten verses twice. It had been too long since I had read 1 Samuel outside of Sunday School and I had forgotten Hannah's rejoicing was even there. Perhaps it stood out to me because of what I have been reading: Joan of Arc's trial and Julian of Norwich. But there are other reasons, too. In any case, I add Hannah to my list of women of old whose words I am grateful to have access to; words that inspire me and resonate with similar feelings that grow within me. 

And it seems fitting for the coming holiday. For as I watered the flowers tonight and saw the fireworks on the next street over that my neighbors launched in early celebration of Independence Day, I couldn't help but feel they symbolized something new I can't quite explain that connects to Hannah and Julian, and past generations. It has to do in part with a concept my mother often speaks of: the football field of life. I've described it elsewhere in these words:

Forest Gump's mother might have said “Life is like a box of chocolates," but my mother is more apt to compare life to an elaborate multi-generational game of football.  She sees each individual carrying inherited physical and spiritual characteristics onto the field of life, passed to them by previous generations. While they have the ball, their work is to move it down the field. Some generations face heavy interference and lose ground, some drop the ball, others make touchdowns—and there are many to be made. As Joseph Smith explained, “We without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.” (D&C 128:18) This resonates with many who, as they struggle to progress in this life, come to recognize the help of those unseen.  They believe we have not come to the place we are at without the work of those before us. Our triumphs are their triumphs; their work is our work. At times, we may even imagine that those from a previous time rejoice with us when burdens we have received from them finally make it to the “end zone.” 

Tonight, I feel like celebrating not freedom as much as the "players" with me on the field in this game of life. I am full of gratitude for all those God has grafted into my tree; those who have influenced me and shaped my world, past and present. Their love reaches out and surrounds me tonight. They are all around me. 

We have watered, pruned, and fertilized the maple tree growing in my front yard since my grandmother's passing out of gratitude for how our lives were pruned and shaped and nourished by her.  I gaze at its beauty tonight and think of her. I step into my home, still filled with much of my great-grandfather's furniture, my great-great aunt's old stoves and their phonograph; memories of their love gently nudges my mind. I think of Martin. Of Sadie. Of Clair. Beautiful souls that are woven with mine. Joan. Julian. My family and friends here and now.

And tonight I add Hannah. 

And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord... There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.  They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble... And the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the Lord.

Aliens and Westerns in my Home

I went to the library the other day and after walking past the "westerns" isle without a glance (as usual) a realization struck me and I stopped in my tracks. Wait. I'm reading a western novel right now! 

How did this happen? At the recommendation of Oliver DeMille, I guess. And I am underlining something almost every five pages. Astounding! I'd always been programmed to belittle the category "western." That wasn't something I could read, right? I was a cultured musician or some nonsense like that. (Or maybe it was to avoid that painful subject of horses--those amazing animals I am deathly allergic to, but have some unexplainable--and therefore painful--affinity for.)

In any case, the trip to the library reminded me that our culture categorizing books and movies etc. into genres like "western" has been a wall keeping me from great books; books like Bendigo Shafter! I had already learned this lesson with the category of "fantasy" and "sci-fi," so it really must be the horse thing. Anyway, now I'm on the hunt. Down with categories! 

I think my quest is even more passionate because of my experience last week. 

See, you have to know: the category I like least of all? Alien movies/books etc. 

The only alien anything to ever sneak past my category wall was the movie Signs--sneaky M. Night Shyamalan--but that's it. So when I heard of the movie, Home, I planned to miss and was relieved my kids didn't seem interested (the trailer was annoying, right?) 

But last week, the night begged for a date with my two youngest Daysies as everyone else was gone to camps, and Home was the only movie at the dollar theater that was kid-friendly. Dang it. I was going to have to stretch WAY outside my favorite categories zone if I was going to pay three bucks to be super mom. Fine. I'd endure. 

Surprise: by the end of the movie, I had cried nearly three times. I walked out of the theater holding my two little girl's hands tightly in mine, kissing their heads and thinking of my other loved ones off at camps, or away living their lives in other states. I was grateful for the many loving relationships that had been cultivated in my lifetime; grateful for the divine love that bound me to so many cherished humans on this planet and how they each blessed my life. I wanted to bless theirs more abundantly. 

When AD and my other two children returned in the following days, we all went together again for a family night. I thought perhaps I'd be a little annoyed by the humor or something this time, but no, now Adam and I both left the theater in tears, wanting to kiss and cuddled all our Daysies. (Oh, and another category wall broken down: R&B music. They actually found a way to use that style of music to uplift people. Wow.)

"How have we not heard about this movie until now?!" Adam asked as we walked out of the theater. umm...I'd tried hiding it from any of you because it was an alien movie. After reading some of the critics reviews online and seeing the low Rotten Tomatoes rating, I realized that many people don't like it because... well, either the alien thing or they can't relate I guess. A happy home. Loving relationships. Such things are becoming more rare. So rare, critics find movies that portray happy homes and loving relationships "annoying." That's all I can come up with. Or, maybe I deserve to be categorized?: Woman Who Likes Alien Kids Flicks.

Okay. So be it. But this Woman Who Likes Alien Kids Flicks is determined to learn from just such a flick the following: 

If I start to find my home isn't a happy one, if the relationships in my world make me want to leave the planet, then I am going to stop and reflect on the lessons of Home. I am going to stop running away from the reality. I will open my eyes to my own part--to the Truth (not the more or less than true facts I rehearse in my head). I will stop accusing. I will not make those I could love into "Gorgs." If they let me, I will spend time with them. If they fly off to alien worlds and don't come to the party for now, I will give them time, but I will not let their scary armor fool me. I will remember and see always the real them hidden inside. 

They are a child of God. I am a child of God. God's children are here to learn to create and build together, to strengthen each other, to nurture and shape each other and this world. We are here to experience Real love; Divine Love. And it starts in the home. 

Create a wholesome atmosphere in your home. Let seeking minds find adequate family support for growth and development... Face the fact that true fatherhood and true motherhood are fast disappearing. The failure of fathers and mothers to assume their rightful responsibilities actually creates the disturbed conditions we face... we must resist the thrust of the world against our homes. Repentance is in order for many of us. We must put our values in proper perspective. Put time and attention and means on the things that matter most. Few, in their more sober moments of reflection, do not know where true values rest. It takes a reminder, however, to keep them properly in focus. 

 ~A Theodore Tuttle, "The Things that Matter Most," Oct, 1971.

I am learning that I hate categories. They hide things. They make you feel stuck.

This is what I mean by 'feeling stuck': experiencing other people or circumstances as having more power over our own happiness than we do. We believe they have the ability to cause troubling feelings in us that we cannot do anything about, no matter how we try. We wonder how we can ever be genuinely happy, inwardly peaceful, and fulfilled. Obviously we can't as long as we continue feeling offended or provoked or hurt, but we cannot stop feeling that way because we can't see how to stop. 

Can we ever get out of this box once we find ourselves in it? ... On no subject has more diverse advice been given. Every profound ethical or spiritual teaching speaks of it under some label or other. So do many of the more superficial teachings that focus on success. Some of these offer strategies for cultivating tranquillity amidst affliction or adversity. Some show us a path of love they claim will lead us away from fear and frustration. Some, with a much different approach, encourage us to assert ourselves and defend our rights in order to keep others from aggravating and taking advantage of us. Some supply negotiation techniques for winning the respect, deference, or cooperation of others. Some recommend suspicion, pessimism, or resignation as tactics to make us less vulnerable to offense.  

Generally speaking, such prescriptions for happiness don't work very well. They don't work because they fail to show how our hearts can be changed, and with "hearts" I include the troubled emotions and attitudes that keep us "stuck." That failure is fatal, because without a change of heart whatever we do will carry the smell of our manipulative, selfish, or fearful intent, and other people will readily discern it... when we are "stuck," we think, falsely, the problem lies with other people, when the truth is that the problem lies within ourselves. We develop strategies for relieving ourselves of our unwanted feelings without retracing the path that got us into them in the first place... with emotions and relationships, the truth is the cure... Until we get hold of the truth about our condition, our continuing self-misunderstanding will guide us to do things that only make matters worse. 

~ Terry Warner, Bonds that Make us Free, excerpts from chapter one. 

I see so much "mad sad" in this world. All around me. Friends hurting. Family suffering from feeling stuck. Maybe even the word "home" is a category that is making things worse? Is it a category that makes us sometimes want to run away (like the Boov)? Run away because our home is a bad home, or not a good home, not a loving home, a broken home, or not a big enough home, or happy enough home, or perfect home etc? Well, down with that wall! No more feeling stuck. We must find the truth:

Home is just people bonded together by webs of inexplicable spiritual connective tissue (genetically related or not). Walls have nothing to do with it!

Either that tissue that connects us to others is diseased with accusing feelings, lies and self-justifications, or flowing with nourishing love and truth (or somewhere in-between). Sometimes surgery is needed to remove the bond, yes. But isn't it Truth that love must still stitch the wound, or it will fester?  Whatever the state of the bond, I am reminded again (by stepping out of my categories this week) that running away from the problem is not the answer--thank you alien kids flick! We are not stuck. That is a lie. 

Let us go and build like Bendigo Shafter. Let us act. Let us break down walls that make us feel stuck and build homes and heal homes; let us build bonds of Divine Love that make us free.  

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.