It's a Beautiful Day

Posted on 11/08/2020 10:02:00 AM

This morning is a beautiful day.

The sun is shining; leaves are falling gently from the trees in my yard, glinting reds, yellows, oranges, and browns as they turn in the sunlight on their way to earth. Everyone in my house is asleep and it is still and peaceful.   

Yesterday, the results of the 2020 election were called, four days after polls closed and a tense week of watching a map with changing colors of blue and red as results rolled in... and then more changing as results of mailed in ballots were also counted and added.  There has been despondency in my house. There have been tears. There has been fear. And now there is some relief. Joe Biden has been declared the winner and will be 46th President of the United States.

Sigh.

But it’s not really over.

There will be court challenges, many of them decided by appointees of the previous administration, appointed because they are sympathetic to the previous administration. This was their plan all along.  There are already protests in the streets.  Someone will need to respond to and deal with civil unrest and there is little incentive for, or promise, that the incumbent administration will even call for peaceful transition.  There is also a continuing pandemic with signs of worsening to consider.  I fully expect there to be much more to this story.

And yet…

It’s a beautiful day.

This morning reminds me of a morning that is stuck in my memory from 12 years ago. Over the past 12 years, I’ve thought about this single moment often. I’ve wanted to write about it because it rolls around in my head like a stone that keeps getting more and more polished, but I’ve never found the appropriate moment to do so. And to be honest, I had mixed feelings about even “claiming” that moment by writing about it. It isn’t mine to claim.

The day after that historic day in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected as our nation’s 44th President, the first person of color to ever hold the office, I went to work. It had been rainy and dreary most of the week but that morning we all woke up to a beautiful, sunny, fall morning just like today. I got up, got the kids off to school, and went to my office. It’s an atypical office, filled with like-minded people and even when we disagree with one another, we have safe and honest political discussions (weird, right?), so we knew where each other stood on the election and how we all hoped it would turn out.  We were all very happy about this historic moment. It was the first true example of what was always promised: anyone could be elected to the highest office in the country and all were considered equal regardless of race, creed, color, etc.  Eventually, we all settled into our offices and went back to work.

I was heading through to the conference room as the bell to the front door rang and my colleague, a Black woman, got up to answer the door.  It was the UPS delivery man, whom we all saw every day and exchanged pleasantries with, but really didn't know that well. A Black man.  My colleague opened the door, they met eyes, and both of them stopped for a moment in the doorway and smiled broadly at each other.

“It’s a beautiful day,” she said.

“Yes. Yes it is,” he replied. They just looked at each other for a moment, frozen in the doorway, with volumes communicated yet unspoken.  And then he stepped into the office to retrieve the packages and they both went on about their job duties.

That little moment between two strangers was based on hundreds of years of shared knowledge and experience.  It was powerful, it was hopeful, it was beautiful… like the day…  and at once I felt like I was getting to see and understand something that I - a person who walks through this world appearing to most who see me as a cisgendered, straight, white woman - seldom experience.  I was grateful to witness that moment, a little uncomfortable because my presence felt like an intrusion on a private moment that wasn’t mine to share, and to be honest, maybe even a little envious that I didn’t share that moment with them. I wasn’t in the club and that was quite honestly fine; it wasn’t my club to be in.

I was 16 when Walter Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in the 1984 presidential campaign.  It was technically historic.  No woman had ever been even considered for that United States office before.  But what I remember most about that year and that race was how she was talked about in my state and community: with facetious derision, comments about how she was “aggressive,” “serious,” “business like,” when in fact, those qualities are the very qualities that lead any person to seek a position like that and be successful. We just hadn’t ever seen a woman in that office before so it was easy to mark her as something unwonted and atypical. Years later, I would hear the same kinds of things about the first woman to run for President, Hillary Clinton, along with: “I don’t like her pant suits,” “her voice is harsh,” “I think she’s sketchy,” “she’s abrasive and unlikable,” as if those are qualities we concerned ourselves with in male candidates for the office prior to that point in time.

Maybe it was different in other areas of the country, but my experience was that no one took Geraldine Ferraro seriously and everyone believed Mondale would lose because he chose a woman as his running mate, not in spite of the fact. She was a detriment to his chances rather than an asset.  I didn’t really understand politics then; maybe there were other, more legitimate, reasons why Mondale lost that race, but Regan-Bush won it and ushered in a long period of favoring money over people and a sliding slope of divisive American politics, widening the divide between the country with each successive election. We wouldn’t see another woman even selected as any kind of serious presidential candidate for another 30 years.  For me, as a woman in America, though historic, Geraldine Ferraro’s selection wasn’t that moment.

I love Uncle Joe.  He was not my preferred choice as a candidate for a number of reasons, but I have followed his career and find him to be a fair and compassionate man.  Not perfect, but one who at least tries to represent those he was elected to serve.  He understands hardship and grief and he and I have that in common so I feel a great kinship to him. This election has been so focused on two Presidential candidates and the vast differences between them, that I’ve often forgotten to consider the importance of the Vice Presidential candidates and what this moment says about us (and U.S.).

So watching Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech this morning (I honestly was so exhausted from the week, I went to bed long before it aired last night) was poignant. It’s the first time I’ve felt like I might be in the club just a little bit.  Kamala Harris is a person of color.  I check the “Caucasian” box on census forms because there is no other box that describes me better, but I have a racial and religious background on both sides of my family that includes hate, discrimination, and persecution... one which complicates how I see myself in the world even if I recognize that it isn’t how others see me. I understand that there is privilege that goes along with that.  Many of the things I know about myself to be true aren’t obvious or visible to others. But I am a woman and I have experienced misogyny (both outright and systemic), assault (both overt and subtle) and harassment (both accepted and illegal).

Kamala Harris said last night, “Every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”  This is the first proof in action that that statement might be true and it is important and powerful.  I’m so sad Geraldine Ferraro isn’t here now to see the way she started to pave.  I now consider her courage and sacrifice in a way I never did when I was 16.

What does all this mean for our future as a nation? 

Honestly, very little.

Just like in 2008, when we elected the first person of color as President of our country, that act alone isn’t enough. As we have learned over the past 4 years, a lot of back sliding can happen in a short period of time and uncovering hidden and subtle systemic problems takes more than one result in one election.  We still have a divided nation and the most disappointing thing for me this week, as it was 4 years ago, was watching how close this race was after witnessing what this country collectively witnessed from the candidate.  There is still much work to do and we must all be a part of it. Character matters. We need to prove that as we move forward together.

Unless we all decide to make a collective effort (not just an ideological judgment) to move forward, make a fair place in the world for our children and future generations, include all people in our considerations for opportunity and fairness, treat others with respect... we will definitely just end up here again. One presidential candidate can’t do it. One vice presidential candidate can’t do it. WE must do it.

For me, this election, like Van Jones said, was a referendum on the idea that character matters. Honesty matters. Respect matters. It is so much easier to be a parent today knowing that. But it isn’t enough. Not enough of the country spoke up to say it.  And I am most disappointed in all the people who basically said, “I saw the thousands of lies told, I saw the disrespect to other human beings, I saw the refusal to call out and denounce racism, I saw the attempts to thwart the democratic process and suppress voter will, I saw the sowing seeds of fear, I saw the hypocrisy… and you know what? I’m okay with that.” Because this is their team just like their college football team is their team and they will always root for it no matter how much it sucks.  Then they went and cast their votes for more of the same.  Like they had to support their team regardless of what that said about the team and themselves.

It’s not over.

It won’t be over for a long time.

But today, for the first time in a long time, I feel hope.... and it's a beautiful day.


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To Gillian on her 20th Birthday

Posted on 10/20/2020 11:34:00 AM

In a way, you’re the lucky one. You're not around to see this.  

The world – or at least our little piece of ithas devolved into an ongoing missive of anger and insults thrown back and forth.  Even those who are fighting for the rights of others are unable to have even the smallest of civil discourse about how to make it better.  An upcoming election will basically be a major cog in the while of whether this country descends into fascism and benefits for only the most wealthy among us or whether government truly is of the people, for the people. It’s the most hotly-debated and important one in my lifetime and I still don’t know how it will turn out.  A global pandemic has shut down much of our normal every day activities, your sisters are attending virtual school, I work from home 99% of the time, your father works outside the home and I worry about that every day, we don’t go out much.  Your sister tested positive for the virus and then we quarantined - even more than usual – and didn’t see or come into contact with another human in real life for a month.  (So far she, and all the rest of us, are fine, by the way.)

I'm focusing on the fact that we are all together. We have a modest home, but one that I really enjoy just physically being in. We have a menagerie of animals that help us enjoy our time here. And maybe most importantly, I love my family and don't mind spending this much time with them.  It's sometimes stressful, but it's also made us closer. And it's also hard to be positive some days.

And yet...  I still have hope. In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

If it’s good enough for Anne Frank, I guess it’s good enough for me.

I miss you.

 


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To Gillian on Her 19th Birthday

Posted on 10/20/2019 08:37:00 PM


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Space Dust

Posted on 3/08/2019 12:36:00 PM

There comes a time in everyone’s life 
when you can’t take a breath without knowing you don’t deserve the air you breathe,
when you feel you are at the lowest you can be,
when you’ve hit rock bottom.

But if you think, for one second, 
that life isn’t worth living,
or the universe won’t miss one tiny speck of space dust on a polluted planet,
then you’re wrong.

You can do so much and no matter what you think, 
someone, somewhere loves you and will mourn when you’re gone.
This world that is filled with mistakes is just a small fraction of everything
and our knowledge of it is always growing.

In this big… or small… world, 
there is no need to hang onto all the mistakes.
Don’t be a loose thread, just waiting to be torn off,
never even wanting to experience the beauty of life.

Some may shed tears because the sky is falling down,
but I’d rather dance and be wet with the wondrous drops of sunshine.
After all, the universe wouldn’t be what it is 
without every single speck of space dust in it.

- The Caterpillar, March 2019

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To Gillian on her 18th Birthday

Posted on 10/21/2018 09:09:00 PM In:
And then with one thing or another, 18 years went by.

Have you ever been to the batting cages when the pitching machine was set just a little too fast for your abilities but only just a little? You could catch a piece of most of the balls but never have a chance to breath in between or reset yourself to hit a ball the proper way, so mostly you're just madly swatting them all away from your head to avoid a head injury.

Yeah, that's how life feels right now and for the past couple of years. 

There is so much going on to tell you.  So much in the world. In our home. In my thoughts.  And I just keep swatting the pitches away from my head, hoping that one day, some day, I'll have a moment to do it right.  And the truth is I don't see that moment coming any time soon because as soon as one ball is out of my periphery, three more are coming at my face.  I long for moments to sit and ponder. To meditate. Just to figure stuff out.  But they don't come and I just keep swinging, hoping I'm hitting at least some of those parenting fast balls right and fearing that I'm missing them all.

This year, you would be able to vote.  Not that there's a lot to be proud of being part of our country's political system these days.  I would be telling you what I've already told your sisters: I'm sorry. Sorry to hand this broken machine over to you and sorry that we didn't take care of it better.  We tried. Lord, how we tried.  And for so many years, it felt like we were actually making progress.  But now? Well, let's just say it is extremely difficult to feel hopeful.  I don't know how it got so out of control so fast.  It's not like I'm giving up, and I would be telling you what I keep telling myself, that I still believe there is more good in the world than bad, but oh how the bad seems to be the only one with the megaphone and the keys to the car right now.   It's damned disappointing, honestly.  I have faith that your generation can do amazing things and will be better caretakers of our rights and our safety than ours turned out to be.

Your sisters are amazing.  Not always easy to parent, but I imagine few strong willed, independent people were.  You'd be proud of them, but if their current relationship is any indication, you'd never admit it.  They are both capable, brilliant, hilarious, talented humans with endless potential.  Oh, they make me crazy, but even more so, I like them each an awful lot.  I love talking to them and laughing with them, and hearing their takes on things and I'm so proud of the people they are turning out to be, even if, or maybe especially because, it's not who I expected or would have designed had I had the chance.  

Sometimes I wonder about what parenting them would have been like had you been here to go through it with me first.  I sometimes imagine that you'd have all kinds of sage wisdom to pass down and then every conversation I have with them would be easier because of it.  You would have given me the magic words to say to make everything better for them, and totally have been on my side every time one of them and I have a disagreement, which is, let's face it, all fantasy, because life and people do not work that way, but there are just some days that are so hard and I want a mage on my side to wave a magic wand and make everything right. That's what people who are gone get to do when they die, become saints or superheroes.

These last couple of years have been more about loss than anything else.  I lost a good friend and coworker this year.  In fact, I just got back from his funeral today.   It's why I didn't manage to post this yesterday.  He was a good man that I worked with for over 20 years and never for a moment didn't love and admire him.  I was not alone.  I think as his family goes on without him, his legend will grow as well and maybe he'll become more wise and more kind in their memory.   I think this tendency to aggrandize people after they die is just our way of trying to keep our good memories with us. 

Grief is the last act of love we can give to those we loved for when there is deep grief, there was deep love.

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Messengers of Peace and Love

Posted on 12/21/2017 07:33:00 AM
It's been awhile, poor, neglected blog.  This year has seen lots of change and happenings both good and bad. I'd like to wrap it all up at some point with a quick overview of our travels through the world.  Maybe I'll get to that before the end of 2017.  But today, I am trying to make a Christmas for my family without really having my heart in it, just knowing that we are all safe and together and maybe that's all you get sometimes.  

I was asked to give a sermon at church the week before Christmas.  Like most of the times I am asked to speak in church, I thought long and hard about the topic assigned to me and then spoke about a completely different thing.  But it was an important Thing.  And a lot of people have asked me for a copy or to read it if they weren't there.  So, while I've never much enjoyed using this format to display to the world things as sacred and personal as my spiritual feelings, I'm going to repost it here because mainly, I want to remember that at one point in my life, I felt like this.  And everyone needs a reminder sometimes.



Messengers of Peace and Love
Sacrament Meeting Talk 12/17/2017

In Moses 1:39, God says to Moses:

For behold, this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

I was not asked to talk about this scripture today.  I was asked to talk about this one Matthew 10:39:

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

And I was asked to relate this to how we can be messengers of peace, knowing this.
I’m gonna try to get there, but in a bit of a roundabout way, so bear with me.

In this scripture – the first one about God’s work and glory, not the second one I'm supposed to be talking about – there’s something problematic that’s been rolling around in my head for a while now.  The way I understand it, God is not a god on the weekends and a dentist during the week.  He does this full time.  This is all He does.  His “job” is to bring people to Him.  So as I have been pondering this verse – exactly one sentence describing God’s entire purpose – I wonder, “How’s that working out for you, God?”

Yes, missionary work spreads the Gospel and there is, of course, much good in the world that we often just choose to overlook because we’re busy fearmongering with the rest of the 24-hour news cycle. But isn’t even the fact that we overlook it problematic?  I really do wonder what progress toward that goal humanity has made recently.  It seems rather bleak, when you think about it.

Millions in this world are in pain and experiencing difficulty.  Many in this very room.  Millions deny God or goodness, choose darkness over light, die without ever having had a chance to know more or better.  Some do choose the light and are affected by the choices of others through no fault of their own.  And still more suffer through no fault of anyone’s – earthquakes, floods, fires – just because that’s the way life is and God doesn’t – or maybe He can’t – step in and alter events that were set in motion millions of years ago. 

And then there’s how we as human people react to it.

We have more access to one another than ever before in human history.  We can talk to people continents away and hear back in the blink of an eye.  We understand diverse languages and places in seconds with the help of a small, excellent rectangle most of us carry around in our pocket.  We communicate more than ever… and yet we listen less than ever.  The world’s information is literally at our fingertips and instead of using it to come together for good, we very often use it to divide us.  In many cases, it seems like it’s two steps forward, two steps back for God’s purpose.  How is that working out?

So either God is failing miserably at His purpose, or….

…there is much that we do not understand.

For me, someone who tends be a bit left-brained with this kind of stuff, God, the power of God, the priesthood, the Holy Ghost, all of it… is the power that binds the universe together.  Keeps the earth spinning, our hearts beating. 

And the conclusion that I’ve come to is that we feel that power – maybe just a tiny bit of it - when we love.

There’s a hymn in our hymnbook that goes like this:

Earth, with her ten thousand flow’rs,
Air, with all its beams and show’rs,
Heaven’s infinite expanse,
Sea’s resplendent countenance—
All around and all above
Bear this record: God is love.

The scripture reference for this hymn is 1 John 4:

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

8 He that loveth not… knoweth not God; for God is love.

In that chapter, John goes on to teach us more about the nature of that kind of love.

9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

12 No man hath seen God at any time. [But…] If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

So back to my original assignment:

He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life - for my sake - shall find it.

But first, a story.

The morning was much like any other red-eye flight for Todd Beamer. An early alarm, a hurried shower, quiet goodbyes to the wife and kids and out the door.  His plane was delayed that morning due to traffic and it took off almost an hour behind schedule. I imagine passengers boarded the flight tired and a bit grumpy due to the delay.

Todd’s flight was just getting airborne when the first plane hit the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.

About 45 minutes into United 93’s flight, terrorists stormed the cockpit and killed the pilot and copilot. They told the passengers they had been hijacked and shuffled them to the back of the plane. Some passengers made calls to loved ones, where they heard the news about planes hitting the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Word spread among the passengers.

Todd made a call and was forwarded to an airline supervisor named Lisa. He informed her that the plane had been hijacked. He told her terrorists had knives and a bomb. At one point the plane made a sharp turn and Todd yelled into the phone, “We’re going down!”

It’s impossible to know all the events that transpired on that plane, but you have to believe Todd and the other passengers were connecting the dots at this point. They probably realized the plane was headed toward another important target on the ground. For awhile, the runaway plane was rumored to be headed toward Chicago. It turns out United 93’s intended target that day was Washington D.C., probably either the Capitol building or the White House.

To Todd and the other passengers, I suppose the target hardly mattered. United 93 was going nowhere good, and it was becoming clear this would likely be their final flight.  It was also clear that many more would die if they didn’t do something.

The details of exactly what happened next aren’t totally clear, but Todd and a few around him decided to fight back. He and some other ordinary passengers and two ordinary flight attendants planned to force their way into the cockpit and steer the plane into the ground. These ordinary people made an extraordinary choice to sacrifice their lives in an attempt to save the lives of others.

You’ve probably heard that thought experiment about the man standing near the tracks as a train bears down on a group of five people who will surely be killed.  He sees a lever that could divert the train to another track, but there is a workman on that track doing maintenance. A single push of the lever would divert the train and, while killing one innocent person, save the lives of five others.  Five would die if he does nothing, weighed against the option of one death, but it will be his doing.  It’s an ethical dilemma — what should he do?

Todd and the passengers on United Flight 93 chose option C that day. They chose themselves.

Still on the phone with Lisa, Todd recited the Lord’s Prayer and then the words to Psalm 23. He asked Lisa to call his family and let them know that he loved them.

“Are you ready?” Lisa heard Todd ask someone else on the plane.

“Let’s roll.”

United 93 crashed into the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all of its passengers but sparing hundreds more of the plane’s original intended targets.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

…and he that loses his life for my sake  – meaning for love’s sake because God IS love – shall find it.

Many people have actually, physically, lain down their lives for love of God or friends. Thankfully, very few of us in this room are called to do that.  But that doesn’t mean this scripture doesn’t apply to us also.  In this context, for me, here is the real meaning of “laying down my life for His sake”: Can I love with a Christlike love?

Am I strong enough to love others, even when it’s hard?

Am I kind enough to allow others to follow their own path without judging what I might have done had I been on it?

Can I become good enough to continue on my own path, even when other paths might look easier or have more company?

Do I respect the agency that God gave me enough to allow others their own?

Can I love myself and my fellow man without reserve, without contingency, without judgment?  Just… love.

Look, there are a lot of things about the Gospel and the Church, about God, the Universe and Everything, that I don’t really understand.  When I was serving a mission, I actually, physically wrote down a list of questions to ask God next time I see him.  Most of those things, I’m still waiting for the answer on.  And waiting and waiting.  When I was a kid, the older people in my congregation used to bear their testimony and say that they knew the Church or something in it was true “with every fiber of [their] being”.  Personally, I’ve never really related to that phrase.  I don’t really know anything with every fiber of my being and there have been things that I was pretty darn sure about that turned out to be wrong later, so I don’t tend to like absolutes.  But here’s one thing I do know - if not with every fiber of my being, then more so than I know anything else - that everything about the Gospel is, or should be, rooted in love.

Because what you do matters. 

The smallest act of kindness… the simplest expression of love… it grows.  It reverberates throughout the world, through the universe.  And it’s a light that’s more powerful than any force of darkness.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son. (John 3:16)

Brother and sisters, this is the real good news that the angels proclaimed to the shepherds that night so many years ago.  That God loves us.

And on earth, peace. Good will toward men. (Luke 2:14)

It is only through knowing that and being on board with not just feeling His love for us, but also sending that love back outward in turn, that we can lay down our lives for His sake.  We can be messengers of peace by sharing the LOVE of God and Jesus Christ.  And to paraphrase David O. McKay and Jackie Kennedy, if you fail at that, nothing much else matters.

God gave us this amazing world to enjoy and take care of because of His love.  Not because we are that lowly and needy of it. Not because we’re sad, pathetic creatures without Him.  Not because we’re bad, bad rebels and we’ll never ever be any good without His grace.  But because we… are worthy of His grace.  Trials that we encounter and overcome strengthen us because of that love.  He gave us each other to lean on because of that love.  He loves me.  He loves you.  He loves the person on the street corner and the person in the penthouse apartment.  He loves us, not in spite of what we are, but because of it.  Each one of us with our strengths and our weaknesses, with our good decisions and bad, each of us, He loves for what we bring to this human existence of a table. We are all needed at the table.  And because of that love, Jesus Christ – somehow, in some way I don’t fully comprehend, but I’m okay with saying there is much I don’t understand - opened the door to allow us to progress and enjoy that fountain of love in more ways than we could ever imagine.

And knowing that?  

 Well, knowing that gives me peace in return.


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Me in 3 Seconds

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Washington, D.C. Metro, United States
Married, 40ish mom of two (or three, or four, depending on how you keep score) who stepped through the lookinglass and now finds herself living in curiouser and curiouser lands of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Washington, D.C. Metro Area.

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