Different One

The multitude awed, fed, and dispersed,
A collection of friends took leave of each other.
One to the mountains and the rest to a ship,
trusting to meet each other soon.

Distress, unrest, uneasy turbulence
felt by both the water and those on its surface.
Most let it permeate them, stirring up fears and anxieties.
Prolonged exposure to contrary winds swelling doubt.

Except in one, almost two.

This One felt the same unsettledness,
Yet carried Himself with gentle confidence and assured peace.
A time before, he had invited the elements to do the same
and they hearkened, choosing stillness.

Yearning, his companion queried and with the word "Come" ventured,
Heart lurching as his feet met the lake where he stood, stepped, stopped, surveyed and
sunk until saved by an immediately stretched forth hand, filled with resolution and strength,
There without hesitation but with an observant question graced with tenderness.

"O ye of little faith, wherefore dist thou doubt?"

Grief

Grief is definitely grey.  A sometimes beautiful, silvery, grey; clouds when the sun is gone or ashes when the fire has died.  It is what remains when light and heat, life and love, are gone.  It is somewhat transparent too, a veil that exposes me to the world whilst tinging all I see.  

It is amorphous, slippery, ubiquitous.  Sometimes a deadening heaviness in my heart, sometimes a pulsating force that makes it race without hope of relief, sometimes a weight on my shoulders, sometimes a wrenching in my gut, sometimes a constricting wrap around my legs, sometimes a prickling in every hair follicle on the back of my head, sometimes a feverish energy in every cell.

Sometimes it impels me to run, desperately, in an attempt to escape, with arms and hands grasping at the empty air, legs and feet tearing at the concrete, lungs gasping for breath, and heart pleading to burst.

Sometimes it renders such movement impossible.  It is almost as though I have forgotten how to walk, taking halting steps, shuffling rather than striding.  Newton's laws of physics have intensified and I resist changing my direction or state.  Both going to sleep and getting out of bed are herculean endeavors.

Oftentimes, laugher and smiles are foreign; sometimes talking with anyone at all feels like torture.  Processing thoughts in my brain, formulating a response, trying to connect the appropriate response to the situation exhausts me.  Sometimes I am disengaged, disembodied, a ghost.  But alas!  Not a ghost, for I am still here and feeling and facing what is before me.

Tears are welcome and ever present.  Grief mimics the slick streams that fall from my eyes.  Yet, unlike tears, it does not dry to a crust nor can it be wiped away.  It settles like a film on my skin and my heart and my senses, and I take it with me everywhere I go.  Smooth and heavy, it is difficult to carry.  I am constantly, clumsily adjusting to accommodate this burden, ever breaking, but never dropping.

A subtle bitterness or blandness accompanies all that I smell and taste.  It is not overpowering, but ever present.  Grief tends to like that way. 

The sound of grief transforms, just as its placement and influence on my body do.  It wanders from silence and whimpers to wails and outcries and back again.  Mostly it is sighing, the relinquishing of life giving breath.

And so, grief is now my companion. With grief, I break bread, though with no appetite. By grief, I am tucked in bed, though I become sleepless. Grief listens to my every thought, touches my every surface, and witnesses all my tears. She does not wipe them away, but encourages them to flow, and how I need that acceptance.  The impression grief leaves on my heart is deeper than the ocean, endless as space, and wider than the sky. It is so heavy and yet permeates all of me, an emptiness and a weight all at once.   

One friend says this pain is the breaking the shell of my understanding.  Another advises me to take care of grief, and if that means pay attention to her, I will certainly agree.  Ignoring does no good and neglect only intensifies my dislike of her.  Yet acceptance of her helps her to become beautiful to me, to teach me in ways that I did not understand before.  Difficult as she may be, I am grateful for my grief.

Sacred Exchange

I came with distress, ensnared in thoughts
I left with peace, gently freed from the web.
I came with trepidation, encased by much fear,
I left with hope, light filtering gently.
I came with frustration, enclosed by resistance
I left with a soft heart, one open to counsel.
I came with remorse, engulfed by sorrow,
I left with forgiveness, my heart singing praise.
I came with joy, enveloped with gratitude,
I left with it doubled, connection reinforced.
I came on my knees, arms folded, head bowed,
I left with courage from God's unrelenting love.

Joy

"A feeling of great pleasure or happiness"  Its roots include "rejoice" "hope" and "bliss" in different languages.

Dear reader, I don't know if it is because the sun is shining, birds are singing, green is springing up to embrace both the freely falling raindrops and gentle warmth of the sun, an abundance of truly good and dear friends in my life, or a combination of all of these, but I have felt this particular emotion a whole lot lately.  I think that I've let myself feel it a lot more often and that has made so much difference.  As I was thinking this one day, I came across this message chalked on the sidewalk and loved it.

Joy has come to me as I've felt the sun on my back, watched a bird or a bug make its way in the world, laughed with friends, tasted something wonderful, moved my body into a tough balancing pose or pushed it harder than I thought I could or simply let it relax, listened to the voice of dear ones,  and smelled the freshness of air outside.  Sometimes it sneaks up on me, surprising me with its intensity and suddenness.  Other times it settles on me, growing gradually until I realize its there.  Emotions are like that--sometimes unpredictable, usually powerful, and gradually understandable.

Truly, "men are that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25).  I know that all of life is not joy, and trust me, there are moments when I struggle with the emotions and thoughts.  Often times I try to flee them rather than struggle with them actually.  I've learned that I am not very swift when it comes to outpacing these thoughts and feelings.  They catch up to me eventually and then I have less strength to wrestle them, with their sneers and persistence.  Still, the opportunities to feel and receive joy abound.  They really do.

I love this poem.  Mary Oliver has captured my admiration as of late, and I felt to share something that she penned about joy.

"If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb."  

I hope you find a feast of joy wherever you are, dear reader.  I know its there for you.  Perhaps not spread out on a table, but deliberately placed in your path by someone who loves you dearly and is excited for you to find it and relish it when you do.  

Childhood

Dear reader, do you have iconic parts of your childhood?  Things that stir poignant and deep memories and feelings with the slightest contact?  I certainly do.  One of those is Winnie the Pooh.  I remember watching episodes of the TV show with my siblings, making a paper machae "hunny pot" for a Winnie the Pooh costume, being teased that I had a crush on Christopher Robin.  Much as I sometimes feel embarrassed about it now, Winnie the Pooh is very much a part of me.  

The other day, I remembered this clip from a silly ol' bear film from the 90s.  It still touched me deeply, though it has new meaning.  I love to look for types of Christ in media and to me, Christopher Robin teaches us much about the unconditional love, kindness, and help that the Savior offers each of us.  I feel like this clip captures Christopher Robin's relationship with Winnie the Pooh, and by extension, our relationship with Jesus Christ, so wonderfully well.  I know that Christ's promise that He will always be with us is real.  How good it is!  

Replenish

"Life is always unfinished business" 

Richard Gilbert

In the midst of the whirling day, In the hectic rush to be doing, In the frantic pace of life, Pause here for a moment.

Catch your breath; Relax your body;

 Loosen your grip on life.

Consider that our lives are always unfinished business;

 Imagine that the picture of our being is never complete;

Allow your life to be a work in progress.

Do not hurry to mold the masterpiece;

Do not rush to finish the picture;

Do not be impatient to complete the drawing.

From beckoning birth to dawning death we are in process,

And always there is more to be done.

Do not let the incompleteness weigh on your spirit-

Do not despair that imperfection marks your every day;

Do not fear that we are still in the making.

Let us instead be grateful that the world is still to be created;

Let us give thanks that we can be more than we are;

Let us celebrate the power of the incomplete;

For life is always unfinished business.

  

Ah, this touched me.  It replenished me.  I've been thinking about that word, dear reader.  Replenish.  I'm kind of a word nerd and love looking up etymology of words and pondering the origin so that my understanding of the meaning changes.  Its really beautiful and fun to me.  

Replenish, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, means to "fill something up again," or "to restore."  Its origins include "supply abundantly" and "expressing intensive force" with nods to "fill" and "full".  

I've been replenished lately.  I had some gunk in me for a while; untruth that I had held on to, unrealistic and unkind attitudes, mistakes and missed opportunities that I clung to and refused to surrender.  In this bitter and withdrawing attitude, dear ones reached out in love and concern.  And I yielded to their outreach, though there was a strong pull to isolate myself.  As that gunk was pulled out, let out, gushed out, I found myself empty and able to be still rather than upset.  And then started the replenishing.  I'm not sure I'm quite empty of gunk yet, but I know that replenishment is real and that it happens and that it is healing.  

Love.  Love replenishes.  How I need to be reminded of that and to let it in to my life.  

This Morning's Gift

Wintertime walking is a real treat, dear reader.  If you're like me, opening the door to the outside brings a bracing drop in temperature, one that causes you to gulp cold air into your lungs and wake up.  Following that beginning, there is so much to enjoy.  Visible breath; brisk and invigorating freshness; water stopped in its normal downward path in splendid icicles; snow, sometimes with snowflakes that you can see the shape of; muffled sounds when snow is newly falling and crunchy steps once the snow has melted and refrozen; sometimes foggy low hanging clouds that leave the next 40 feet a mystery; delicate frost that graces every surface in sight.  (Just so we're clear, I took the following picture in hopes of capturing it, but didn't really succeed.  The other photos are from those who are more skilled than I.)

The picture really doesn't do it justice.  

Today as I walked, I thought about the frost that I saw.  It was thicker than normal, but not in an overbearing way.  I tried to think of the right word to describe how the frost had settled on the grass and tree branches, giving them a beautiful white, almost shining, outline.  

Glazed?  Nope.  

Frosted.   Mmmm, close, but not quite.  

Dusted?  Naw.  

Um...encased?  No.  That sounds almost morbid.  

Encrusted, then.  Nope, not quite.  

Engraced.  Yes, that is it.  

So I marveled as I passed so many ordinary trees, engraced with frost to make a truly beautiful sight. 

Engraced is a made up word, dear reader.  Its what my brain suggested when I was running out of descriptions for the winter phenomenon.  Graced would probably suffice, and in looking it up, the dictionary shares that grace has connections with pleasing and grateful.  The word, in its noun and verb form, contains beautiful meaning, such as "simple elegance or refinement," "to do honor or credit to," and "adorn".   

And maybe its because Valentine's Day is coming up, but I thought about how love makes the most ordinary things splendid.  That may sound tacky, but I believe that it is true.  A life graced with love is a really beautiful one.  

Cold

Cold is an enchanting hostess,
but a miserable houseguest.

When you visit Cold, she welcomes you briskly,
without hesitation ushering you into her world of white.
She may make your cheeks redden and nose redden,
your fingers and toes lose feeling,
your eyes water and nose sting,
such is the way of Cold.

But people say such nice things,
"Cold hands, warm heart," they say,
"What a healthy glow!" they say,
"Would you like some hot cocoa?" they say
that the side effects of visiting Cold seem negligible,
almost desirable.

Her decorations are always exquisite, captivating,
detailed, a delight to the senses.
Geometric, lacy snowflakes, delicate frost,
in timeless shades of white and gray, and sometimes hints of blue.
Rippled icicles, chilly yet a tactile joy,
frozen waves you cannot disrupt.

Cold creates most wonderful sights,
peace settles on the world with her
blankets of falling snow, which gently grace
every surface they land on.
She emphasizes every detail, while obscuring them at the same time.
A masterful designer, Cold is.  

When you leave Cold, exhilarated and enlivened,
you appreciate the warmth of the inside.
You remember the crisp blueness of the sky,
even if content to view it from a window,
and recall the marvel of seeing your breath as it leaves you.

Yet when Cold comes to call on you,
she is a much less gracious personality.
Her briskness remains, and she sweeps in your door without
the brief pause and welcome that cordiality recommends.
The snow that comes with her quickly melts,
leaving puddles for you to slip in or dirty the floor.

Once inside, Cold lingers near windows and doors,
sulking, avoiding, or looking for the nearest escape route.
If others join your party, she flees even further and faster,
refusing persuasion to join the conversation and company
of your other houseguests.

Anyhow, just keep in mind that cold can be a marvelous hostess,
but a reluctant houseguest.

Pain

I've felt some pain lately that has taken me by surprise lately.  I mean, there's not a terminal illness that I'm fighting, but there's other things that I am.  Mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.  And sometimes I've just wanted to withdraw from that pain or at least want it to go away so that I don't need to deal with it.  But you know, there is strength and healing to be had in facing pain.  By that I mean enduring it and sharing it with others leads us to vulnerability, love, and hope.  It may not make the pain go away, but accepting and facing it with people we love offers such clarity that makes it easier to bear.  

This poem really helped me face my pain.  I hope it helps you, dear reader.     

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses

your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears. 

Khalil Gibran

Thoughts Lately

I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of words as well as the power of belief.  And the power of connection, but that is kind of another story (as you can see from the previous post).  Sometimes I get so trapped into thinking about me and myself and my problems with my four walls and my heart just sinks.  I realized this week how far I have plummeted and that it really hurts, but that is OK.  As I was processing my feelings about it all, this poem just sort of flowed from it.  I don't really consider myself a poet and have not labored over this one enough to have it clearly convey precisely what I'm looking for, but I wanted to share it.

Rebuke

Huddled, peering, until now
blanketed by familiar dimness.
Living in fear obliviously, unintentionally, unawares,
Until you, in a stated observation, shine a light on my cowering frame and force me to see my shaking in the shadows.
I resist, resent, recoil,
an animal fighting to keep things the way they are, focused on the pain of change and seeing
no kindness in your outreach.  I'm content with how I was,
even if it means I was plummeting.
Falling from what I once was and hoped and felt and loved.
I knew that I has slipped, but did not realize how fast I was going.
At least I grew numbed to the cold and deaf to the whistling wind.
The change you spark hurts, like pins and needles,
incessant, inescapable, insistent.
You've yanked off the blankets and until I get up and do something,
I am no longer at ease.
Sharing my burden with you makes it feel heavier, more real and weighty,
as though acknowledgement had granted it actuality.
Yet with the weight I heave on my shoulders, my heart heaves relief
and rekindles hope at the memory of connection.
Yes, that hope hurts.  But, oh, how that hope causes in the heart rejoicing, remembering, regaining,
reviving.  

Connection

Whew.  Its been a while!  How is everything going with you, dear reader?  While it is the typical lazy dog days of summer time, I have felt a little overwhelmed lately--err, rather like I've been on the verge of being overwhelmed for a long time.  Its is an odd feeling.  Moments of ugh have been had, moments of aha have been had, moments of face palming have been had, moments of high fives have been had.  And you?

I want to share something that we've been talking a lot about in the persuasive writing class I'm taking right now.  We've been talking about a therapist named Carl Rogers, who developed a theory of communication that has been applied to persuasive writing.  Its a pretty interesting form of persuasion because unlike other methods that seek present an opinion and bring others to that opinion, using Rogerian theory means that the writer is open to being persuaded themselves.  According to Rogers in the process of getting to know one's audience through "genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood)", one's own ideas on an issue may change, a risk that one takes in seeking to understand the other side.  

As part of our discussion, we watched this video.  I was struck by it and just really liked it a lot and wanted to share it with you.  I really like what she says at the end about how connection mades things better.  I feel like connection does make things better, even if it means that we get a little bit vulnerable and open ourselves to the sharing and bearing of hard-to-handle emotions, both our own and those with whom we connect.  

This continued and I thought about empathy and how Jesus Christ came to empathize with us, to be able to understand and share our feelings.  I love what is written of Him in the scriptures, especially about His role in our lives.  Alma shares it so beautifully: 

"And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.  Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me."

I know that He is there to connect with us always.  I am so grateful for the invitation that He extends to be yoked with Him and to take on the challenges in our lives with Him by our side.  I've recently had a really unhelpful habit of comparing myself with others and one day, it became clear that the Savior's invitation "Follow me" is between me and Him.  My connection with Christ and my decision to follow Him is not based on what happens around me or what others are doing or not doing.  Its me keeping my eyes on Him and doing what I feel is what He would do in the situations that I encounter.  

Remembering this, I feel to say with Paul, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."    Its so personal.  He is waiting for us--for me and for you--to come, to give grace and mercy and help as we--you and I--seek it.  I love that and know that He is waiting out of love, that He is the epitome of genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.  It is so beautiful.