Things I Love from Mormonism

• Emphasis on hard work, self-sufficiency, helping those around you.
• That we all have the seeds of godliness within each human being.
• Honoring those who have gone before us.
• Some really nice symbolism.
• The idea of atonement, that there is a force in the universe for healing and growth for when you fuck it all up or feel like you just can't get where you want to go or be the person you want to be, that force for good there inside of you, waiting for the moment when you actually start letting go of all your old baggage and moving on to a healthy and happy you. 
• That it was started by a little guy who asked big questions.
• Related to the above, that sometimes you find fear/darkness/feeling of abandonment before you get knowledge.
• Though it may not seem that way now, deviating from an expected path is at the very core of the religion; the religion's foundation is a giant metaphorical middle finger to "the establishment." If you find something that is wrong or that just makes your soul cry out for answers, maybe it's your responsibility to find the way that is in accordance to the principles of justice and mercy and benevolence and truth as you understand them. Maybe the system is broken. Maybe you were misguided or misunderstanding or headstrong or wanted to have everyone married together in a giant heavenly love-fest and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe you love communes. Maybe you find out after trying it out that some things work better in theory than in practice. Maybe you love nature. Maybe you love someone the same sex as you. Maybe you think people shouldn't be put into little boxes because of their sex or gender. Maybe you are mystical and spiritual and find all the obedience stuff super mundane. Maybe you end up realizing that mundane can transcend too. Maybe this bullet is getting too long compared to all the other bullets. Maybe all of the above. But most importantly, maybe you won't know until you try it, until you say Dear God I don't think this is right, I need to embark on my own. I know of at least one founder of Mormonism who did so. 

Surely there are more, but those are off the top of my mind. Sorry Mormonism that we couldn't make it work, but we had some good times, a lot of which have made me who I am today.

Look what happens

Someone from my high school posted this on facebook and it really struck me somewhere inside, especially that last phrase.


Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, “you owe me.” 

Look what happens with a love like that. 

It lights the whole sky. 


This quote appears to be attributed to Hafez, Persian poet.

The Trees

Here is a poem I remember reading in high school. Well actually I only could recall that first line.Thanks, google.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

How fitting, for this time of the year. I just love looking out and seeing the overlapping shades of the fuzzy trees. Various yellow greens, all so tender.

Going from a kind of grief in ancient rings to beginning afresh, afresh, afresh.

Alice

So I just re-watched the new Alice in Wonderland and these words jumped out at me.  The White Queen speaks them to Alice as she's looking out at the faces of all the friends she has made along the way, deciding if she is up to the challenge of fighting the jabberwocky.

You cannot live your life to please others.  The choice must be yours, because when you step out to face that creature, you will step out alone.  

The beginning sounds a little cliche... but then that last part especially hit me pretty hard. While we can and often do have the support of loved ones - friends, mentors, family members - we ultimately battle our demons ourselves, by ourselves.

It is hard sometimes to know what you want.  It's hard to know what is your own and what you've merely absorbed from those around you.  But sometimes you need to know how to distinguish.

Maybe "that creature," the jabberwocky, can be a lot of things.  But it is certainly a thing we are afraid of.   I remember something a woman said at a presentation/seminar to other women about having a dream and working to reach it: if you feel scared, or like it's impossible, you're probably getting close.  And somehow, that same feeling seems to be the key to knowing what you want.  Pushing through the fear, pushing through despite the fear is what makes you strong.  It is how you know. 

You will step out alone. 

Dreamtime: Refurbished Humans

I had a weird, kind of vivid dream. All I can recall is a series of vignettes.

I was leading an old woman home, to her home. It was nighttime, and the terrain was kind of rugged. We were at the last stretch, only had to climb this final set of stairs, but there was plywood nailed across to prevent our passage.

I tried to lead her around the side of the stairs, but suddenly lightening flashed, illuminating a giant figure directly in our path. Silent. Looming. The lightening glistened off his bald head. Probably eight feet tall at least.

In his workshop, at the top of a high tower, he performed modifications on captured humans and replaced their joints and muscles with little animatronic gears and that sort of thing. So he could control them, as his minions. The refurbished humans also somehow became kind of small. Like they could fit in the palm of your hand. It was a bit horrifying.

I didn’t know how I’d escape, or the old lady either.

The next scene in the dream, this Heroic Man had shown up, subdued the giant, and was performing the same procedure on him.  By 'subdued' I mean 'gave him lots of wine'.  The hero dude was using forceps to install plastic gears into the giant's shoulders.  He just lay there on the floor, giggling at how it tickled a little bit (apparently he was a very silly, cuddly drunk). I remember feeling slightly nauseated over the whole thing, torn over whether this was the right thing to do. Just because a giant man does something to other people doesn’t make it okay to do the same thing to him.

Especially when he was so sweet and easygoing once you got a couple drinks in him...

Lentacular

On the one hand, Lent has been going pretty well, in terms of not craving candy/chocolate/desserts (except that today I want a cookie DESPERATELY, but generally I even do okay). 

On the other hand, I don't know how well I have been doing in terms of my original conception. Everything has just been sort of a fog of numbness these past couple weeks. 

Le sigh. I don't even know what's going on with that. 

Well, there are still three weeks remaining for me to at least ATTEMPT to do this with a little more purpose.  Yes that is the whole point of any of it, for me at least. 


Meaning and purpose. 

Me, or not me?

So in high school growing up, we had this friend Tom with whom we'd play "me or not me," a pretty silly game wherein we'd name different people and he'd have to identify the person as himself or not himself.  So, if someone said "Tom," he would say "me," but  if they said "Katie," he would say "not me."  It was pretty funny/endearing how he would get so intensely sincere, this generally pretty smart kid, about identifying whether a person was him or not. 

Last year at about this time, I posted about embarking on the 40 days of Lent and quoted some particularly striking words to which I want to return at this moment:

It takes kenosis, a stripping of oneself, a totality of surrender. It takes a total interiorization, in which we recollect all our fantastically scattered thoughts. Because symbolically speaking, we must be naked and follow a naked Christ. We can’t take anything with us except faith, hope, and love.

The game we played with Tom as high schoolers seems pretty silly, but now, as an adult, I am realizing that "me, or not me?" is actually a difficult question, particularly when it comes to feelings.  It has taken me a lot of years, but I'm finally realizing - beyond intellectually - that if someone is angry, that is them, that I am separate from them.  I am slowly learning to step back and even put up an emotional barrier of some sort that acknowledges their feelings as well as establishing some sort of distance or distinction.  Just because someone else is sad, just because someone else is angry, even if it is because of me, it doesn't mean that I need to get sucked into it, a false empathy.  Somehow, a part of empathy is boundaries, in a strange way.  I can't really describe it that well. And I'm tired and I need to get up in 6 hours to catch a trolley to catch a train to catch a shuttle to catch a flight.*  So this will not be one of my most well thought out posts. 

Anyway, the journey within is one we are forever and always making, often cyclically, and so at this season of my life I am dedicating this time to a focus on the aspect of the journey pertaining to my own feelings, in essence, an emotional version of "me, or not me?"  I suspect, and it has been my experience so far, that as you learn to step back, to simultaneously experience AND observe what is happening, that the way to act just becomes clear.  And I hope that because I'm giving up something which I enjoy and do regularly (eating sweets/desserts), those little abstentions will serve as reminders for me to keep these thoughts on my mind and heart.  Giving up to possess, letting go to hold on.  The more I focus on emotional boundaries, the more of myself I will be able to give.  Life is - in a way, it seems - abundant with beauty and little infinite paradoxes. 




I've had this song/scene stuck in my head.  I like her making a difficult and scary decision for her family, but also for herself.  And I like it when she prays to the ancestors.  And I like the synthesizer music.  And when she cuts off her hair with a sword.  I don't even know. 




*I'm going to Utah tomorrow to go skiing and see some friends and of course to visit my brother P at The Lord's University.