Returning a more real you to yourself

“We were each other’s big, real hope and luckily recognized it fast. When good fortune pulls up in front of you too quickly, it can make you suspicious. You hesitate before getting in. But both of us had been through enough lonely times to know there were only so many chances at contentment with another person. In other words, don’t think too long before acting.

In his ‘Letters to a Young Poet,’ Rilke copies down one of his correspondent Kappus’s poems and sends it back to the young man, saying, ‘And now I am giving you this copy because I know that it is important and full of new experience to rediscover a work of one’s own in someone else’s handwriting. Read the poem as if you had never seen it before, and you will feel in your innermost being how very much it is your own.

For some reason, the idea of this great man hand-copying a fan’s poem and sending it to him has always touched me deeply. What generosity! Who would ever think of doing that?

But then I met her, and she took much of what I was or believed and, putting her own stamp on it, handed it back to me as if I had never seen it before. Perhaps that is what love is—another’s desire to return you to yourself enhanced by their vision, graced by their handwriting."

— JONATHAN CARROLL


This is true of the love I have experienced in my own life. Specifically, my mother comes to mind. No one I have known has helped me to see my "innermost being" in the light that she has. But... even more completely than that, is who I see through the love I experience from God. Because isn't this what He asks of us? To give ourselves to Him -- and then to have ourselves returned enhanced by His vision, enlarged by His perspective, seeing ourselves through His eyes and love?

not shrinking is better than surviving

Elder Bednar gave a CES address that I listened to after the fact (thanks to my roommate who put it on in the living room) and I was touched by the strange way (strange? I guess in the gospel it's never strange... instead, a tender mercy that still can catch one off guard) what he spoke of so aptly set out to sooth the tender places within my own heart.

At the core of his stories and words of guidance was this: that staying faithful to the promises of the Lord is more important than receiving the promises.

"Many of the lessons we are to learn in mortality can only be received through the things we experience and sometimes suffer," he said. He reflected on time spent with Elder Neal A. Maxwell before his death: "During the course of our conversations that day, I asked Elder Maxwell what lessons he had learned through his illness," Elder Bednar said. "I will remember always the precise and penetrating answer he gave. 'Dave,' he said, 'I have learned that not shrinking is more important than surviving.'"

To further illustrate this he told the story of a newly married couple who faced the extraordinary challenge of cancer when he was diagnosed and they began a long fight with the illness. When they asked for a blessing, with the expectation of one of healing, Elder Bednar asked first if they had the faith "not to be healed."

"In other words, [they] needed to overcome, through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the 'natural man' tendency in all of us to demand impatiently and insist incessantly on the blessings we want and believe we deserve," he said. "We recognized a principle that applies to every devoted disciple: strong faith in the Savior is submissively accepting of His will and timing in our lives — even if the outcome is not what we hoped for or wanted," he said.

"Even with strong faith, many mountains will not be moved," he said. "And not all of the sick and infirmed will be healed. If all opposition were curtailed, if all maladies were removed, then the primary purposes of the Father's plan would be frustrated."

...the purpose of changing us the way that only a great challenge can do. The way only a trial of our faith can teach us patience and humility -- and put us is the position where our choice to continue in faith has real significance because it was not easy to do so.

Sister Bednar also spoke -- before her husband, but I feel her words apply here. She spoke of the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ which "strengthens us to do hard things, things we don't think we can do when we don't understand God's will and timing in our lives."

We are all asked to continue on doing hard things that we, at times, feel are beyond our strength. To continue on not receiving the blessings we righteously desire and have been told we need not "earn" because the Lord desires to bless us, and yet only see given to others. We cannot fully understand why and in the depths of our despair the only question we have to ask is "why?"

But to continue on trusting God, even when our lives take a direction we do not desire and our hopes are not met is to stay faithful to the promises of God even when it seems those promises will not be fulfilled. And staying faithful is more important than receiving -- even when it breaks our hearts.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart;

looking back for reassurance

“Why do we look back at the thing we just tripped over, both literally and symbolically in life? Is it some kind of reality check? Do we do it to make sure the object is there to certify we stumbled over *something* and not just our own clumsiness or wrong actions? Whether it’s a broken sidewalk or a broken love affair, we almost always look back— often more than once." — JONATHAN CARROLL

No Man's Land: Eternity is a Long Time

I just read this post and you should too: No Man's Land: Eternity is a Long Time "One time a pen pal of mine asked me if he should get married, not to anyone in particular, just kind of a quandary about the whole institution..."

Brahms Intermezzo A Major Op 118 No 2

My dad sent this, stating that: "It is a beautiful and introspective piece of music. Brahms at the end, contemplating his life, its wonder, and its grace. I get tears in my eyes each time I hear it."

I have listened to it on repeat this morning and each time it becomes better.



p.s. Brahms wrote this as he was watching all of his friends pass away. I've read that he wrote "easy" pieces like this for Clara Schumann as she was in too much pain to play more complex pieces. A heartfelt gift to an old and dear friend in her twilight.

Easter weekend

I read this article today about the unexpectedness of the events of Easter and it totally connects to my post on the resurrection from over a year ago. Read 'em both! ;)

God's open arms

I read a wonderful article "on being surprised by God" (you should read it) where the author made the point that "God is more liberal in His views and more boundless in His mercies than we are ready to believe or receive" (Aaron R.).

This is a concept I began to believe in an abstract way through my interactions with others. Watching someone live a truly GOOD life outside of "the true church" you can't help but feel that God is more liberal than we often assume Him to be. That His heart and His arms are more inclusive than we anticipate.

A few years ago, my family was discussing a relative (a brother of my grandmother) who was a wonderful and honorable man -- a man my dad and all my uncles looked up to and admired -- who had left the church. My uncle surprised me by turning to me asking if I thought a man like this would be excluded from the Celestial Kingdom. In that moment, recalled in my mind a lesson from an institute class, where we had attempted to figure out the percentages of those that would be saved using the scriptures (for example: more than 50% of those born on earth die before the age of accountability [most in infancy] so we are already seeing the majority saved!) and with that in mind I responded "I think God will save a lot more of us than we give Him credit for." My uncle smiled and agreed with me, and it wasn't too long after that I had that validated in my mind and heart again. I was reading Stephen E. Robinson's book Following Christ and I came across the parable of the diver:

“Many years ago, when I was somewhere between nine and eleven, I participated in a community summer recreation program in the town where I grew up. I remember in particular a diving competition for the different age groups held at the community swimming pool. Some of the wealthier kids in our area had their own pools with diving boards, and they were pretty good amateur divers. But there was one kid my age from the less affluent part of town who didn’t have his own pool. What he had was raw courage. While the rest of us did our crisp little swan dives, back dives, and jackknives, being every so careful to arch our backs and point our toes, this young man attempted back flips, one-and-a-halfs, doubles, and so on. But, oh, he was sloppy. He seldom kept his feet together, he never pointed his toes, and he usually missed his vertical entry. The rest of us observed with smug satisfaction as the judges held up their scorecards that he consistently got lower marks than we did with our safe and simple dives, and we congratulated ourselves that we were actually the better divers. “He is all heart and no finesse,” we told ourselves. “After all, we keep our feet together and point our toes.”

“The announcement of the winners was a great shock to us, for the brave young lad with the flips had apparently beaten us all. However, I had kept rough track of the scores in my head, and I knew with the arrogance of limited information that the math didn’t add up. I had consistently outscored the boy with the flips. And so, certain that an injustice was being perpetrated, I stormed the scorer’s table and demanded and explanation. “Degree of difficulty,” the scorer replied matter-of-factly as he looked me in the eye. “Sure, you had better form, but he did harder dives. When you factor in the degree of difficulty, he beat you hands down, kid.” Until that moment I hadn’t know that some dives were awarded “extra credit” because of their greater difficulty. . . . ."

“Whenever I am tempted to feel superior to other Saints, the parable of the divers comes to my mind, and I repent. At least at a swim meet, we can usually tell which dives are the most difficult. But here in mortality, we cannot always tell who is carrying what burdens: limited intelligence, chemical depression, compulsive behaviors, learning disabilities, dysfunctional or abusive family background, poor health, physical or psychological handicaps—no one chooses these things. So I must not judge my brothers and sisters. I am thankful for my blessings but not smug about them, for I never want to hear the Scorer say to me, “Sure, you had better form, but she had a harder life. When you factor in degree of difficulty, she beat you hands down.”

"So, enduring to the end doesn’t have much to do with suffering in silence, overcoming all life’s obstacles, or even achieving the LDS ideal (“pointing our toes” and “keeping our feet together”). It just means not giving up. It means keeping—to the best of our abilities—the commitments we made to Christ when we entered into the marriage of the gospel. It means not divorcing the Savior or cheating on him by letting some other love become more important in our lives. It means not rejecting the blessings of the atonement that he showered upon us when we entered his church and kingdom." (Stephen E. Robinson, Following Christ: The Parable of the Divers and More Good News [Salt Lake city: Deseret Book, 1995], 34-38.)

Comprehending and appreciating this means seeing that God really is aware and accepting of the trials and difficulties of our lives, and that while this doesn't change his expectations of us and for us, it does make Him much more merciful that we often think of Him to be. (Or are ourselves towards others. 1 Samuel 16:7 "...the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.")

I came to believe this in a more real and personal way through my own experience of God's mercy. The author of that first article wrote that "being surprised by God is part of the process of repentance" and I can testify to the truthfulness of that statement (Aaron R.). It has been in the moments following my mistakes, the ones that leave me asking "who am I to do something like this?" and feeling as though I could never reclaim my former self, that I have, through repentance, been surprised at how easily I am forgiven and how quickly I am able to return to a full spiritual life. God's mercy has surprised me. 

In Matt 23:37 the Savior laments "...how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but ye would not." I think at times we "would not" because we think that in our sinful state (in our "messy house") we cannot be gathered. And while "we ‘have every reason to believe Him to be’ a certain way because we inhabit a world that is laden with false assumptions or misapprehension about God’s purposes or plan.  The gospel is a call to enter into a covenantal relationship within Him in order that He can reveal Himself to us, and through that process disabuse us of those false notions.  In that process, there will be moments when we realize that God must be a ‘very different individual from what [we] have every reason to believe him to be’ " (Aaron R.).  

These will be the moments where we are surprised by how open God's arms really are.