Driving Home at Dusk on a Summer Evening

Few houses have sitting porches, and fewer still have people sitting on them. It is more comfortable inside with air conditioning. Porch furniture in place, unoccupied. Streets deserted.

A man sitting on a boat trailor in the garage surveying his newly mowed lawn, a can of beer in his hand. I feel like I've interrupted something just driving by.

A small boy helping his dad spread mulch in their flower beds from a five-gallon bucket, scooped from the bed of a large pick-up truck. A big job for such a little guy. 

Pink and blue stripes across the sky. A burst of orange on the northwestern horizon. Friends and family in far flung places renowned for their beauty, but I am the lucky one.

This Morning's Epiphany

This morning I woke up with the thought (apropos of nothing):

PEOPLE WILL DISAPPOINT YOU.

I have no idea what I had been dreaming about or what my sub-conscious mind had been puzzling over, but it did not strike me as a negative, foreboding thought at all, like something in a fortune cookie -- just a realization of truth, a nugget of wisdom I had not articulated before.

People will disappoint me, often without meaning to. Sometimes, even despite good intentions, I will disappoint others.Worst of all, and most painfully, I will disappoint myself.

Even some of the closest, most nearly perfect people in our lives will sometimes fall short, often in small ways not even worth mentioning. It's called being human, and it's universal.

I have been a tough customer throughout my life, a person with very high expectations of myself and others. I have been perplexed by human weaknesses, including my own. My expectations will remain just as high - I do not regret those - but I hope to be able to remember this epiphany when I experience disappointments and want to shield myself from them. Disappointments caused by human shortcomings are a natural part of life.

The acknowledgement that people will disappoint me has had a strangely liberating effect already in the short space of seven hours:

• I am free to love everyone, despite hurts.
• I can also feel worthy of their love, even though I'm not perfect. 
• I can love myself despite having disappointed myself over and over again.

I reserve the right to protect myself from future hurt, but I know that a certain amount of hurt or difficulty is inevitable and necessary for our growth and understanding.  As the poet Kahlil Gibran said, "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."

I can forgive and love people anyway, and expect the same forgiveness and love in return. It is my right as a human being, and my obligation as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are the only ones who will never disappoint us -- that's why we can safely place our full faith and trust in them.

People will disappoint us, often again and again, but it is our task/duty/challenge/commandment to find a way to forgive them, to love them despite their faults, shortcomings, hurts and limitations. We can also hope that they will love us despite ours.

If we truly believe in repentance and the power of the Atonement, in which our sinless Savior paid the price for the sins of all mankind (not just for our own sins), we  forgive and love one another anyway.

In junior high art class, I made a poster with fluffy white clouds on a blue, blue sky (indicative of my idealism) that said:

LOVE IS THE ANSWER.

WHAT WAS THE QUESTION?

That's how we can resolve difficult interpersonal relationships in our lives. We can love, which is our most natural inclination as children of a loving Heavenly Father.

*****

One more quote and a poem:

It is to the credit of human nature that…it loves more than it hates. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

THIS I KNOW

by C. Margaret Clarkson 

I do not know what next may come
Across my pilgrim way;
I do not know tomorrow's road,
Nor see beyond today.
But this I know --my SAVIOR knows
The path I cannot see;
And I can trust His wounded hand
To guide and care for me.

I do not know what may befall,
Of sunshine or of rain;
I do not know what may be mine,
Of pleasure and of pain;
But this I know -- my SAVIOR knows
And whatsoe'er it be
Still I can trust his love to give
What will be best for me.

I do not know what may await,
Or what the morrow brings;
But with the glad salute of faith,
I hail its opening wings;
For this I know -- that my LORD
Shall all my needs be met;
And I can trust the heart of Him,
Who has not failed me yet.

At the risk of sounding like a prude...

I am writing this blog piece knowing how it will come across. I am ashamed in advance for my apparent elitism, which I despise in others. But it's all true (from my perspective)  and has to be said. I just can't take it anymore!

What is it that has me all worked up? Everything, everywhere! I am bombarded with it. Maybe it's just the extreme heat or my own hormones (quite likely) or age itself. I may have crossed some invisible barrier in the maturity process that makes me cringe at the crude, the vulgar, the stupid, and the profane. 

I first noticed this phenomenon years ago while watching late night television, which is a bastion of the crude, the vulgar, the stupid, and the profane. (That might be where I overdosed on the stuff.) I cringe at Jay Leno's sex jokes and the stupidity of the people in his man-on-the-street interviews.  After watching David Letterman on various networks for the better part of two decades, I stopped watching his show cold turkey after witnessing him belittling a guest. Seriously -- cold turkey! Can no longer abide the man!

I have just returned from my local Walmart where I witnessed:

• a screaming child and his aloof mother (I know, I know - she may have had her reasons for ignoring the behavior, but the child needed some sort of comforting, or a nap, or something)
• an angry, mean father dominating his three small children while his pregnant wife looked on in silence
• magazine covers about bad boy Justin Bieber, bad girl Miley Cyrus, and new mom Kim Kardashian

But Walmart is not the place to go when you are looking for serenity and beauty -- it's the place to go for good deals. I usually have much better experiences shopping there at odd hours when fewer people are present. Again, the elitism -- I cringe at that, too.

Two consoling thoughts come to my mind...the first, a line from an unknown poem, "the world is too much with us," which (by Googling) I have discovered to have been written by William Wordsworth in 1806. Could he have experienced a similar phenomenon so long ago? Apparently so.

The other thought that comes to mind is from an LDS hymn of the same name: "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" by Emma Lou Thayne, a poet I have actually met. She was in her 80s and still as alert and active and delightful a person as I have ever met.

I will post both of these poems below, in case you need solace from the crude, the vulgar, the stupid and the profane as much as I do.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON

By William Wordsworth, 1806 

          THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
          Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
          Little we see in Nature that is ours;
          We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
          The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
          The winds that will be howling at all hours,
          And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
          For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
          It moves us not. ...

Where Can I Turn for Peace? 
By Emma Lou Thayne

1. Where can I turn for peace?
   Where is my solace
   When other sources cease to make me whole?
   When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
   I draw myself apart,
   Searching my soul?
2. Where, when my aching grows,
   Where, when I languish,
   Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
   Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
   Who, who can understand?
   He, only One.
3. He answers privately,
   Reaches my reaching
   In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
   Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
   Constant he is and kind,
   Love without end.

Just Checking In

I want to shout from the rooftops that IT'S ALMOST SPRING!!! And I am determined not to miss it. Each day as I drive by several parks collecting kids from school I look at the blades of grass on the ground -- tufts of green amid the golden, matted grass of fall. I've examined the ends of the branches of trees in our yard -- buds are in place, ready to split open with new growth. I can hardly wait.

I like spring and I like fall. Winter and summer are fine when observed from a climate controlled car or home, but spring and fall are glorious inside and out.

Book Review: MISTER PIP by Lloyd Jones

 

At long last, I have finished reading the novel, Mister Pip, written by Lloyd Jones. My copy of this novel was published in 2008. I've probably been reading it for three or four years!!! And it's only 256 pages long. My aunt recommended it to me years ago.

It's the first person narrative of a young woman named Matilda living on an island that is under siege as a small pawn in a multi-island war. She is a young teenager when the book begins and often at odds with her mother, who seems proud, dogmatic and unreasonable. The mother, of course, is worried about the war, her absent husband and her daughter's salvation and physical safety - but from the girl's perspective (and the reader's as well) the mother is simply difficult. We don't discover her super-human strength until late in the book, when it becomes impossible not to admire her, despite her obvious flaws. I will never forget the mother's heroism in her final act of defiance.

With war ravaging the island, they ask Mr. Watts, the island's only white resident, if he will teach school since all of their real teachers have fled. He agrees to do so, but he is not a teacher, so he spends much of every class period reading aloud from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. The children are entranced by the story of Pip, which takes them away from their war-torn island to 19th century England, providing a much-needed escape. The children return to their huts at night and share story developments with their parents, who have no other source of entertainment. The entire island is caught up in the book, until the book disappears. The children and Mr. Watts then try to re-create the book in fragments from memory. Mathilda, our narrator, remembers it best and is Mr. Watts' favorite pupil.

When evil soldiers arrive to destroy all of their possessions and terrorize the residents of the village, Mr. Watts tells them his name is Mr. Pip. He regales them with mostly true but sometimes made-up tales of his life, hoping to escape the island on a boat at the end of the seven-night story.

I won't tell you how it ends, but it is shocking and disturbing -- man's inhumanity to man (and woman), man's (and woman's) humanity and bravery, young woman's instinct to survive and, later, thrive, despite the devastations of war.

These things happen. We go on. We remember. We will never forget.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are some fragments from the book:

* "I want this to be a place of light," he said, "no matter what happens." He paused for us to digest this....For the first time we were hearing that the future was uncertain.

* When Mr. Watts read to us we fell quiet. It was a new sound in the world. He read slowly so we heard the shape of each word.

* in a book -- no one had told us kids to look there for a friend.

* Stories have a job to do. They can't just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.

* I discovered the value of four walls and a roof. Something about containment that at the same time offers escape. .... What they had kept safe was more than our possessions; our houses had concealed our selves that no one else ever saw.

* A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe.

*Dreams are nervy things. All it takes is for one stern word to be spoken in their direction and they shrivel up and die.

* I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you.

Only 8 Posts in 2012?

I received a scam email this morning -- a comment trying to post to my blog. In fact, I didn't realize it was a scam until just now, hours later, looking at it again. Anyway, it got me looking at my blog again and realizing I have only posted 8 times this year! I have the sense that blogs have become passe, but I miss writing here and will try to write more consistently, whether or not anyone is reading my posts.

It's like leaving my diary open on a public park bench, but I am a little more guarded than that. In fact, other than universal emotions, I don't reveal a whole lot of personal information on this blog or on Facebook or in any other public place. That is intentional, of course.

But I am so glad for the scam email because it took me to other comments waiting to post and I was thrilled to see that someone else, Dianna Lord, is trying to find Mrs. Sanders, my/our all-time favorite teacher. [I've had many great teachers, but she was truly unique.] Dianna had her a year or two earlier than me in a different school, I think. I will email her now and find out what she has found out in the quest to find Mrs. Barbara Ann Sanders, teacher extraordinaire.

Don't know why...What happened?

I can't believe I am writing on my blog again. When Blogger made changes to their site, I couldn't figure it out and quickly gave up. Today I had to look at the blog to check something and there it was, as plain as could be, as easy (almost) as it used to be.

I'm BAAAAACK!

And it feels good. Missed my internet outlet.

What has happened since I last wrote? A lot, and yet not much. Instead of looking backward to catch up, I will look forward, or better yet, live in the ever-ephemeral NOW.


So it is late. Thanks a late afternoon nap I am the only person awake in the house, with the possible exception of my daughter Abby who bought a new, much anticipated  book this evening at Barnes & Noble. She is probably lying awake directly above me reading in her bed.

I had two pieces of taco pizza tonight while writing under deadline to enter an essay contest. I wanted more than two pieces but couldn't pause to eat.

New wrinkles appeared on my forehead this week. They are faintly etched but nonetheless noticeable lines. I am considering bangs.

Battle lines are being drawn in the civil war known as presidential politics. I am, of course, still smitten with Mitt, but I have friends and relatives on Facebook who are equally (if that is possible?) passionate about Obama. They are too cynical to believe that things can be better, so they are determined to re-elect the current president. They think Romney cannot possibly understand them because he has been relatively wealthy all of his life, as though the amount of money in one's bank account is directly proportionate with one's levels of empathy and integrity. The fact that Barack Obama will garner millions of votes in November boggles the mind. Truly, 'boggles' is the right word. I am boggled. But I don't spend a lot of time trying to convince anyone about politics, probably because I have never successfully persuaded anyone. I am beginning to suspect that there is a genetic component to one's political tendancies. I'm not smart enough to figure this one out.

I've probably mentioned this on the blog before, but in high school and college I was a debater. I could debate anything with anyone from any angle, and sometimes I would win whole tournaments. It was exhilerating! But somewhere along the way I figured out that there are very few things worth arguing about. Peace is so much better than contention! And people are entitled their own opinions, just as I am entitled to mine. I will even allow for the possibility that an opinion different from my own may be right.

There are some things worth fighting about, but those are mostly matters of life and death, including spiritual life and death. I will fight for someone's life or soul, but for very little else.