Beauty - Eternity - Magical Moments

“…we stopped short, both of us, and took a deep breath and let the sun warm our faces while we listened to the music drifting down from above … maybe that’s what life is about: there’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never.

  

 “Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time. … “Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?” 

I like the thought of the “jewel of infinity in a single moment” and “a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time.”  We’ve all probably had an experience when we’ve felt that jewel of infinity or have felt eternity enrich our time here – and we’ve been disappointed when we can’t capture it and hang onto it for more than a moment. At these times I think of the scripture from Luke 2:19 about Mary – “And she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

The author talks about an "interlude in time" during which you just know something that's unexplainable, something that's connected with the other side and can't be explained in the language we have. I think that's what the author is trying to convey by talking about an "elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never." It doesn't make sense to see it written but it makes perfect sense when you experience it. 

Here’s one more contemplation of beauty and eternity in the context of Japanese art – “… the camellia against the moss of the temple, the violet hues of the Kyoto mountains, a blue porcelain cup – this sudden flowering of pure beauty at the heart of ephemeral passion: is this not something we all aspire to? … The contemplation of eternity within the very movement of life.” 

I want to be more mindful of those time warps during which we can see and feel eternity in beautiful small moments of our lives here on earth. 

Quotes from The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Translated from French by Alison Anderson

Peace

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14: 27

We read this scripture the other day and it went right to my heart. I have often felt the peace that comes from Jesus Christ, his love, and his teachings - and from living his teachings. 

I think it's curious and awesome that it's possible to feel peace in the midst of challenges. When my heart feels troubled or I feel fear creeping into my being, I am thankful for this reminder that Christ offers peace that will calm the troubled heart and take away the fear. The challenge is still there but I can deal with it in a much calmer and more focused way. That peace is very real.

Book - The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Translated from French by Alison Anderson

Renee Michel is the concierge for a luxury apartment building in Paris. She’s a self taught “expert” in many areas yet plays dumb for the people in the building because she feels that’s her “place” and what people expect of her. What happens when she discovers she is a kindred spirit with several of the building’s tenants? Paloma, Renee and Kakuro are misfits of sorts among the so-called high class of Paris that dwell in their apartment building. Paloma and Renee aren’t comfortable with who they are “supposed” to be. Kakuro doesn’t buy into the class distinctions because he’s from a different culture and country. 

At first I didn’t like the book and considered giving up on it. But then it grew on me. Parts of it reminded me of conversations around my childhood kitchen table. Discussions of art, literature, philosophy, pets, daily routines and so forth. No one was trying to impress anyone, everyone was just sharing observations from experiences, reading and thinking. The author explores the meaning of life, the life paths and choices one’s so-called place in society seems to dictate, confining ourselves because of what others expect of us or what we think we have to do. What is beauty and why do we need it? 

I don’t mind books that make literary references and drop names I don’t recognize. I usually look up words and names I don’t know and enjoy the learning process. But there’s a balance the author has to achieve. I was fine with it in this book. I also don’t mind words or phrases in other languages as long as it’s not overdone. I’ve read some books where I felt there were way too many foreign phrases. I didn’t want to look them all up yet I felt I was missing parts of the story by not knowing the language. 

A reviewer commented that she wanted to read the book again with a highlighter. That was a thought I had. I borrowed the book from the library and think I might buy a copy so I can highlight it on a second reading.

Read more at goodreads.com - many varied opinions on this book 

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I’ll do several posts on quotes from the book. Here are some about animals as well as thoughts that reminded me of Mom and Dad.

First for the animal quotes

“Elegance of the Hedgehog” is a unique title. Here’s the reference to it. 12 year old Paloma is thinking about the concierge – “Madame Michel [Renee] has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she’s covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary – and terribly elegant.” (143)

 “The only purpose of cats is that they constitute mobile decorative objects,…” – Paloma’s comment about her family’s two cats

Renee observes that the dogs in the building have their masters on leashes.

“At the door stands a courier, chewing on what must be a piece of gum for elephants, given the vigor and range of mandibular activity to which he is compelled.” I can just hear Dad saying this. He and Mom were big on gentle, unobtrusive gum chewing – if you had to chew gum at all.

A remote control for the television – “secular rosary”. That one tickled me.

Renee, the concierge, has very strong opinions about grammar and language. Reminds me of Mom and Dad and their expectations for language and proper grammar. After a rich person who “should have known better” makes a mistake with language, Renee says, “Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work.” Renee doesn’t always take herself seriously. A few paragraphs after this comment about language she says “At this critical moment in my indignant ruminations someone rings at my loge.”

Great Pattern

"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men [and women :)]. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." 2 Nephi 31:20

I love the action words - press forward, feast, endure, love.
I love the phrases - steadfastness in Christ, perfect brightness of hope.
I love the promise - eternal life, which is life with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
I love the scriptures.

A Beautiful Blossom - With A Message

There's a line of these evergreen shrubs along the fence on the property next to us. 

These shrubs and their gentle pink blossoms hold a lot of meaning for me. They caught my eye from the day we moved to Kirkland. 

This year they have been blooming all January. I took this picture the same day our friends and family in the Midwest and East Coast were experiencing an "epic" winter storm. My thoughts went back to the first time I saw these beautiful flowers. 

It was March 2011 when we moved to Kirkland. It was overcast and drizzling. We were at the beginning an adventure with lots of unknowns. I watched all those boxes come off the moving van and make their way into the townhouse and wondered how in the word we were going to do this! Then I noticed the beautiful flowers; we didn't see anything like this in Ohio in March. Their beauty communicated hope and happiness to me. Pictures from that day - 

Every since then I always smile when I see them. 

Not long ago  I read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. There's a discussion of beauty and how something beautiful in the midst of great challenges can be enough to give a person hope to go on. One of the characters says the memory of beautiful camellias in a garden kept him going during a very dark time. I searched for camellia images because I wanted to remind myself what they looked like. My "hope and happiness" blossoms are camellias - I didn't know that's what they are!

And that's the story of my pink blossoms

on a January day in Kirkland

where the adventure continues with great hope and happiness!

Book - The Astor Orphan

The Astor Orphan: A Memoir - by Alexandra Aldrich

"For Alexandra Aldrich, growing up in a 43-room mansion surrounded by 450 acres was not actually all that nice. A descendant of Robert Livingston (he signed the Declaration of Independence) and John Jacob Astor (one of the richest men in American history), Aldrich claims an exalted ancestry. But by the time she inhabited the family home in New York’s Hudson Valley —a sprawling, run-down property called Rokeby—the estate hosted stray animals (a pig named Egbert, goats that had been rescued from a laboratory and a horse named Cricket), bohemian artists and other eccentric drifters more often than it welcomed glittering aristocracy. As a child, Alexandra and her immediate family lived in the third floor of the house—the servants’ quarters—where they scrambled to make ends meet and lived “off the remains of our ancestral grandeur,” as Aldrich writes. Her father worked only to maintain the upkeep of the house; born at the “tail end of the glory days,” he got an Ivy League education but never learned any professional skills that might earn him a living. Alexandra’s world was one of cobwebs and closed-off rooms, walls covered in full-length tapestries that had been “scratched and frayed by cats’ claws at [the] bottom edges”; she dreamed of escaping into a more ordered, average world. The book is a meditation on a way of life, and an examination of what happens when entitlement and refinement meet poverty and neglect. Reading this book is a bit like getting lost in a world somewhere between fantasy and nightmare, where the ghosts of a particular type of antique American greatness confront the realities of the modern world." review in Smithsonian

from the Boston Globe - "Alexandra’s grandparents came of age in the early 20th century and “caught the tail end of the old glory days.” Although her father, Richard Aldrich, attended boarding school and went on to Harvard, he possessed “too strong a sense of entitlement to do a single job day after day and take orders from others,” though, tragically, he “didn’t inherit the money to support that attitude.” Alexandra’s mother, Ala, had a more practical upbringing in communist Poland, but quickly adopted the laissez-faire approach to life endemic to Rokeby, content to feed her children discarded TV dinners — rejects from a local factory — rather than paying for groceries."

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JHT’s comments – 

A great pedigree or family history isn’t much use if you don’t do anything to build on the legacy you’ve been given. Seems like the family admired their ancestors but did nothing to add to the legacy.

The book is essentially a collection of childhood memories and family stories. I kept wanting to tell Alexandra's parents to grow up and take some responsibility. I would have been interested in reading about her life after she “escaped” Rokeby and got on with her life. What did she do to find purpose and meaning in her life? What became of the adults in her life, so many of who were irresponsible in their actions? Answers to some of the questions are in the Internet links below. 

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I enjoyed searching the Internet for followup to this book, looking for people and pictures. Click here, here, here, here, and here. 

This book reminded me of others I read last year about children who had to deal with “unconventional”, some would say negligent, parents. 

- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

- Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Alexandra Fuller’s books about growing up in various central and southern African countries with her British parents

- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight 
- Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness

Blooms & Night Lights

We received an amaryllis bulb at Christmas. This week it bloomed.

Picture taken out our upstairs window - look how green it is; it's like this all winter. 

Daffodils are blooming already! As are the primrose. 

Pansies have been blooming since November. 

 Totally unrelated to blooming flowers are the blue and green lights seen all over - in honor of the Seattle Seahawks and their upcoming trip to the Super Bowl. These pictures were taken in downtown Bellevue.

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Flower Stories - 
Dusty Miller, the silver gray plant in the third picture - Mom liked Dusty Miller and used it in her gardens. 

Spring blooms - The snowdrops by our neighbor's kitchen door were usually the first neighborhood blossoms during that time between winter and spring. Then came the small crocus that grew wild in our front yard. Then came the crocus planted right next to another neighbor's house foundation. All these flowers often came up through the snow to give us hope that Spring was just around the corner. By the time the daffodils bloomed, we were more than ready for Spring. Somehow, daffodils in January, minus the snow, just don't carry the same excitement that they did in Ohio after a long cold, snowy, seemingly forever winter. They're still beautiful though!

Primrose - I love the vibrant primrose colors. I can't say the word "primrose without the song "Primrose Lane, life's a holiday on Primrose Lane, ...." going through my head. Back in Worthington, I helped a young neighbor learn to garden. With her father's permission, we used the small patch of land between the west side of their house and our driveway. Another neighbor gave us primroses for our garden. We also planted day lilies from our nephew's garden as well as hostas from my sister - a legacy garden. Lots of memories packed into that little space. I think of all this every time I see primroses - or hostas - or day lilies.  

Christ - Exemplar & Shepherd

Exemplar and Good Shepherd are just two aspects of Christ's mission here on earth.

Exemplar

"As we understand that Jesus Christ is our example in all things, we can increase our desire to follow Him. The scriptures are full of encouragement for us to follow in Christ’s footsteps. To the Nephites, Christ said, “For the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do” (3 Nephi 27:21). To Thomas, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6)." What would Jesus do? is not just a cliche, it's a way to live our lives - following His example.

Good Shepherd 

"As we come to understand that Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd, our desire increases to follow His example and serve those in need. Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. … And I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14–15)."

John 10: 1-8 - Christ talks about being a shepherd

Learning about, pondering, and emulating Christ's various roles helps me get to know Him better. I can become more aware of how to follow Christ's example and how to assist with His sheep. I can become more like Him. 

Inspiration

This 1953 picture shows four adorable redheads with their grandmother at their grandparent's home

Have you ever wondered what your children are observing and remembering?

I always loved the tiles around the fireplace at Grandpa and Grandma's. When Joe and I were fixing up our home at West North Street, I suggested we surround the fireplace with blue Delft tiles, just like Grandpa's and Grandma's (hers were brown & I don't know if they were Delft but I liked the look). Then we looked at the cost and settled on one tile which we turned into a coaster. 

Mom & Dad in front of our Williamsburg blue fireplace at North Street 

- minus the Delft tiles (Christmas 1981)

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Questions & notes

1953 picture at First Street - Susan & Julia have matching outfits. I wonder if Grandma (Florence/Toots) made the clothes? She might also have made the curtains.I know she made other curtains in the house. She was a very good seamstress. Mom could have made outfits (or curtains) but she probably had her hands full with four little ones. 

The table to the left of the fireplace - we had it at North Street for years, in the den. It moved on to another family member when we built bookcases in the den. I knocked my forehead on the corner of that table (as an adult at North Street). I was bending down to dust and misjudged where the edge of the table was. I still have the scar by my right eyebrow. It kind of matches the scar on my left eyebrow. Mom said I got that one from Poppie and Gram's table in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Kind of makes me sound like a klutz :) although I don't recall many accidents like this. 

1981 picture of Mom & Dad at North Street - brass coal bin to right of fireplace. This is from the Atherton estate and came into the family through Joe's mother via her aunt. We have a 1930 photo of the Atherton house that shows this coal bin. The box holding the logs is from First Street. I don't know if it's from Celia's time or Grandma's time. There's a stencil of Chinese men on the side. I think it was a paint box. It's with family. The vase on the left was given to us by Joe's parents. The bellows to the left of the fireplace were made by Dad. Perhaps he gave them to us the Christmas of the photo. He carved our initials into one side of the bellows. This is with family. Mom made the pine cone garland on the mantle. It's with family. 

Pictures - memories -family - we are abundantly blessed 

Test-Task-Commandment

“The great test of life is obedience to God. 

The great task of life is to learn the will of the Lord and then do it.

The great commandment of life is to love the Lord."  
EzraTaft Benson 

We have found life is fuller, richer, and more wonderful as we've been obedient to God, learned and done the will of the Lord and loved the Lord. Life is good. Life is abundant. We are thankful to God. 

Like Joseph

Heather Farrell writes a wonderful blog about women in the scriptures. Around Christmas she indicated she had been thinking quite a bit about Joseph, the husband of Mary. She wrote: 

"It sometimes seems like Joseph gets swept aside in the story of the Nativity. Mary and Jesus are the main characters, and Joseph seems to have gotten the supporting role. Yet, as I have studied Mary this last year, and Jesus Christ's interactions with women, the more my appreciation for Joseph has grown. He exemplifies every good trait that you could want in a husband, a father, and in a man. I know so many good, good men who are a lot of like Joseph, but I also know that there are so many women in the world who suffer because of the bad choices of men. So as I've thought about Joseph I've found myself wishing that ALL men were like him and here is why."

If all men were like Joseph:

There would be mercy for women

Women would never be abandoned

Women’s bodies would be respected

All children would have fathers

Women and children would be protected

Families would be guided by the spirit

Marriages would be partnerships

Read her complete post here. Farrell's book "Walking With the Women of the New Testament" has recently been published. It's beautiful.

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Reading the post brought Brian Kershisnik's painting to my mind.The first time I saw this depiction of the Nativity I was struck by Joseph. I imagine he's contemplating the enormity of what's happening and his stewardship for Mary and Jesus. 

I took this photo of the painting in a store in Salt Lake City. 

Click here to see a wonderful video of the artist fielding questions from children as he sits in front of his painting. He explains why he portrays Joseph this way. I don't know if you can see but Joseph has his hand to his face and the other hand on Mary's shoulder. Mary cradles Jesus with one arm and pats Joseph's hand with her other hand. The artist also talks about the midwives, the angels and the dog. 

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I am thankful for these reminders about Joseph 

and the crucial role he played in the life of Jesus Christ.

top image from pixabay

Serving Together

Juli, counselor; Amanda, president; Ricki, counselor; Julia, secretary

The four of us serve in the presidency of our congregation's women's organization, Relief Society. Amanda, Juli, and Ricki are amazing women with strong testimonies of Christ and a great willingness to serve.  All of them are younger than our children. I've been out of high school 15+ years longer than they've been alive!!! 

We come from different parts of the country with interesting experiences and connections outside the United States. 

We've all ended up in Kirkland, Washington - serving together

What a blessing!

Book - The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle 

           by Jeannette Walls

image & summary from publisher description on worldcat.org - “Journalist Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary and their four children lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family. When the money ran out, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town Rex had tried to escape. As the dysfunction escalated, the children had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they found the resources and will to leave home. Yet Walls describes her parents with deep affection in this tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life.”

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JHT’s comments – As I read I kept thinking it couldn’t get any worse for these children, yet it did. It’s one thing to want to do things for your children that are “outside” the system and outside the norm. But in my mind parents have a responsibility to their children to feed, clothe, and house them in safety. That requires some responsibility on the part of the parents.

These parents didn’t get that message. They were very caught up in their own their own desires and way of life. They seemed oblivious to how their choices were affecting their four children. The father didn’t want anyone telling him what to do and how to do it. When he couldn't pay the bills or things got tough for him, he got fired or quit (if he happened to have a job), got drunk, and/or left town. The mother often seemed more interested in her painting than her children. She described herself as an “excitement addict.” 

At one point one of the young children reminded the mother that they had no heat in their house, no food, and the children were hungry. “Mom gave me a startled look. I’d broken one of our unspoken rules: We were always supposed to pretend our life was one long and incredibly fun adventure.” (69)

Glass castle referred to the dream house the father said he was going to build for his family. This was one of many promises he never kept.

I could go on and on about these parents, the choices they made and how the children were affected. It sounds like a depressing read, and in some ways it was. The good news is that three of the children escaped the dysfunctional situation, went to New York City, and made successful lives for themselves. The parents followed the children to NYC and chose to be homeless and then squatters even though the children offered to help. 

Jeannette Walls was born in 1960; this is a modern day story. Sadly, too many children are growing up in dysfunctional families.

Walls' advice for neglected children – “Trust yourself. You’re stronger than you realize, and you’ll make it through this. And the most horrible experience often has a precious gift wrapped inside, if you are willing to receive it.” Read the whole interview here. 

  

Read more about the author here and here

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This book reminded me of others I read last year about children who had to deal with “unconventional”, some would say negligent, parents. The spunk of the children helps them deal with their family situations. 

- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

- The Astor Orphan by Alexandra Aldrich

Alexandra Fuller’s books about growing up in various central and southern African countries with her British parents

- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight 

- Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness

Mom, Cookies & Rolling Pins

Mom gave me the top wood rolling pin decades ago, probably when John and I were married. I think it was old and used even back then - an heirloom! The rolling pin in the front is a Springerle rolling pin. Mom used it to make cookies at Christmas. I remember these cookies drying on cookie sheets and having a anise flavor. Click here for information about the cookies. 

Mom also made Spritz cookies every Christmas. She decorated them with sprinkles and bits of cherries. Using a cookie press like this, she made wreaths, Christmas trees, snow people and other shapes. Back in December 1999, I attached a note to the recipe, "Mom likes these 'burned' very dark brown." I agree with Mom. See the dark brown cookies? The butter flavor comes through when they are baked this long - delicious!

November 1972

Book - Tubes - A Journey to the Center of the Internet

Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet

Andrew Blum, 2013

"When your Internet cable leaves your living room, where does it go? Almost everything about our day-to-day lives--and the broader scheme of human culture--can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now. 

"In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure and flips on the lights, revealing an utterly fresh look at the online world we think we know. It is a shockingly tactile realm of unmarked compounds, populated by a special caste of engineer who pieces together our networks by hand; where glass fibers pulse with light and creaky telegraph buildings, tortuously rewired, become communication hubs once again. From the room in Los Angeles where the Internet first flickered to life to the caverns beneath Manhattan where new fiber-optic cable is buried; from the coast of Portugal, where a ten-thousand-mile undersea cable just two thumbs wide connects Europe and Africa, to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have built monumental data centers--Blum chronicles the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explains how it all works, and takes the first-ever in-depth look inside its hidden monuments. 

"This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. For all the talk of the "placelessness" of our digital age, the Internet is as fixed in real, physical spaces as the railroad or telephone. You can map it and touch it, and you can visit it. Is the Internet in fact "a series of tubes" as Ted Stevens, the late senator from Alaska, once famously described it? How can we know the Internet's possibilities if we don't know its parts? Like Tracy Kidder's classic The Soul of a New Machine or Tom Vanderbilt's recent bestseller Traffic, Tubes combines on-the-ground reporting and lucid explanation into an engaging, mind-bending narrative to help us understand the physical world that underlies our digital lives." image & summary from worldcat.org

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jht comments

Who hasn't sometimes wondered how the Internet really works? What are the nuts and bolts of the Internet? I found the author's search for and description of the physical parts of the Internet very interesting. 

In addition to the wires and cables and their connections, the author talks about the people who maintain these physical aspects of the Internet. A relatively small group of people around the world build and maintain all the physical connections. Personal relationships between these people make the network work and grow. " ... the Internet is handmade, one link at a time. And it’s always expanding. The constant growth of Internet traffic requires the constant growth of the Internet itself, both in the thickness of its pipes and the geographic reach of individual networks.”  New links don’t just happen according to some automated algorithm, they need to be created: negotiated by two network engineers, then activated along a distinct physical path.” (118)

Read reviews at goodreads.com

Monkey Puzzle's Cousin

Some of you might remember posts about the monkey puzzle tree that lives about a block from us. Check out posts here and here. It's a very unusual tree and anyone who walks downtown with me ALWAYS gets introduced to the tree. I found a broken branch of its unusual leaves, brought it home, and put it by the front door. Almost everyone who comes to our place gets introduced to this distinct tree.

Recently I was reading an article in Smithsonian magazine and saw a picture of the extremely rare Wollemi pine tree which was thought to be extinct. It was discovered in the 1990s in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Prior to this it was known only through fossils. The leaves and cones looked very similar to the monkey puzzle tree. So I turned to the Internet and searched for "monkey puzzle tree and Wollemi pine." Through the wonders of technology I quickly discovered that they, indeed, are related. Check out the information here.

The theory is that the trees started out together when the earth's landmasses were  joined. Then the continents drifted apart. The Wollemi pine ended up in Australia. The Monkey Puzzle Tree and the land mass it was on became South America.

More about Wollemi pine here
More about Monkey puzzle tree here

Photos - that's the monkey puzzle tree on the left (the one that lives near us) & the Wollemi pine on the right (from Wikipedia)

Sadness, Light, Joy

Let Me Be Sad

Now let me feel sad. Impulse, trained in gladness,
Do not try to whisk me away from grief

.........

Instead, let me grow rich with my sadness.

Let it mellow and strengthen my joy,

.........
Give tears permission to water the parch of loss.

Let its music ripple my spine.

Let me give ardent ear

To what was, to what never will be.
Grief, be my companion in joy.
...........

Like walking into a sea, only in depth can I float. 
Depth, too often feared for its power


To raise me footloose and struggling

Is all that can gentle me back to shore:

Safe, breathing in the cosmos of the sweet unknown
Full of the Light of having been sad.

—Emma Lou Thayne

BYU Studies Quarterly; Volume 53 no. 3 (2014)

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I love this poem. I love the thoughts about grieving and coming through it with richness, light and joy. 

"Let me grow rich with my sadness"

"Let it mellow and strengthen my joy"

"Tears .. water the parch of loss"

Pay attention "what was, to what what never will be"

"Grief, my companion in joy"

"Full of the Light of having been sad."

Emma Lou Thayne, the poet, recently passed to the other side of the veil. She left behind a wonderful legacy. 

Clarity

Sometimes we can see spiritual matters with awesome clarity - like the Olympic Mountains on a clear day. Other times clouds obscure the mountains - like the mist of darkness on the path in Lehi's dream - or the murky mirror Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 13:12 

God is always there. When we feel our view is obscured, we need to do those things that make the clouds disappear and reestablish the clarity - worship, obey, pray, serve, study and ponder scriptures.

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On a clear day this is the glorious vista from our street. Downtown Kirkland is at the bottom of the hill. That's Lake Washington and Seattle is on the other side of the lake. The snow-covered Olympic Mountains are in the distance.

Christmas Lights - Seahawks Style

How's this for Christmas lights?

The owner of this house in Kirkland strung about 150,000 lights. The handmade Seahawks logo is 34 feet long and 14 feet tall. The lights are synced to the music. The house is open to visitors and features a train, Christmas villages, waterfalls, and more. 

Click here to read more about the house. 

Click here for a video.

Right In Front Of Me

Back here I wrote about being surprised when I saw the Space Needle from Kirkland. I'd been looking for it for two years and hadn't seen it. Then one day I did. We lived here for several months before I knew the Olympic Mountains were an awesome sight on the other side of the lake. Clouds had obscured them when I happened to be looking. The same can happen to us spiritually.

"Sometimes the most precious and sacred things are right in front of us, in plain sight, but we cannot or will not see them... I promise that is we unclutter our lives a little bit and in sincerity and humility seek the pure and gentle Christ with our hearts, we will see Him, we will find Him ..." Dieter Uchtdorf


He is there - with arms outstretched in love. 

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Click here to read "The Custodian", a poem which beautifully addresses seeing or not seeing what surrounds us. 

Custodian link added January 6, 2015

Ornament Comes To Life

What happens when over 1,000 people gather to bring a Christmas ornament to life?

Watch the 5 minute video and allow yourself to be moved 

by the awesomeness of the best gift ever. 

Forbes has a wonderful article about this amazing event
Here's a link to a behind the scenes video