Segullah » Justine

Call for Volunteers!

Justine — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:13:54 +0000

Are you dying to sink your teeth into a creative project? Have you wondered how to spend some of your creative energy? Segullah is looking for volunteers, and we’re hoping you’re interested!

We run this blog, our literary journal, and a background non-profit organization, and we’ve listed below a few positions that we are looking to fill. Please consider becoming part of our volunteer team, and making a difference in the Mormon literature world.

We currently need:
Revision editor (not just copy editing!!)
Graphic designer
Public Relations help

Feel free to leave a comment below, and let’s talk!

Mourning the Plan

Justine — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:39:18 +0000

When the doorbell rang at 7:30 in the morning, I wasn’t sure I should answer it. Who would be coming over so early in the morning? I peeked out the window and saw it was a FedEx delivery man. Did I order something online? I was briefly excited for the morning surprise.

As I grabbed the box, I remembered.

Oh. I have M.S. I now get medicine shipped to me overnight in little refrigerated cartons. I have to learn to give myself a shot.

I stared at that little box in my foyer. It was my first such package; a home health nurse was coming over later that day to teach me what to do with the contents of that little refrigerated carton sitting on my foyer floor. I sat down next to the box and stared at it for a moment. The noises of the kids’ morning shuffle were all around me, but it faded into the background as the box seemed to be emanating sounds of its own. The noise from the box was soft and pervasive, not penetrating my ears, rather moving in through my chest. Although wordless, I felt there was a message coming to me from that box: you are not ever going to be the same. You are now broken, and I will come to your doorstep every month to remind you of all the things you cannot do anymore. I’ll be there in your refrigerator every day so you can notice, and never ever forget – you are not whole.

I cried in my foyer that morning. I cried for a long time. I sat on the hard floor and mourned the loss of every single thing that wasn’t, or couldn’t, be mine anymore. My husband came and sat on the floor with me for a while, sitting quietly stroking my hair, trying to muffle out the box’s declaration with his hug.

The box won that morning.

With great slowness, the noise of the real world trickled back into my ears; I pulled myself up off the floor and put the box in the fridge. And although I couldn’t see it anymore, the message stayed with me for a long time. The life I had planned to live, that life was over.

——————————–

There are always great plans to be made when we’re twenty years old, sitting on the bed with our university roommates, planning out what our lives will look like, what kind of children we want, how beautiful things will be. We imagine certain details, certain events, certain friendships. For me it involved, among a lot of other things, a testimony that the Lord loves me, a motivated and loving man, a child (MAYBE two), a successful career in law, traveling, a mission with my husband, an Arts and Crafts aesthetic home, and a beautiful garden in my backyard.

Those dreams from college have, in almost every measure, not looked like I imagined them at the time. I DO have a motivated and loving husband, and I DO know the Lord loves me. But I have been forced to recognize that pretty much everything else on my long list of expectations has fallen by the wayside. Some of the changes from ‘the plan’ have been enormous blessings. Five children rather than one are a blessing I never expected to be so immense and overpowering. Leaving my career was both difficult and incredibly easy. The garden is indeed in the backyard, but beautiful isn’t something I’d ascribe to it.

Some of these departures from ‘the plan’ have been easy to roll with. Others have required intense periods of mourning.

And now, I face disability. It clearly wasn’t part of ‘the plan’. But a few hours after I peeled my tear-soaked body off the foyer floor, as a couple of fantastic friends called to check in on me, I started to run through the list of every person in the world that I love and care about. Not one has had their life go perfectly according to their ‘plan’. Cancer really does afflict people I know. Stillborn babies really are born sometimes. Car accidents, unemployment, failed businesses, depression, aging parents, divorce and infidelity really do happen to people I love. The list of things that are never on anyone’s ‘plan’ seems long and invasive.

And so it was that I found myself sticking a needle into me that afternoon, injecting a medicine into my thigh that might help me ‘survive longer’. I still cried about it; in fact I spent weeks still mourning the loss of who I was, of one more – or maybe a hundred more – things that were gone from ‘the plan’. But in the long months and now years that have followed, there emerged a new plan. This new plan didn’t actually have any expectations in it; rather it held my plan for right now.

The plan involved living. Right now. No more waiting for convenient times to “re-tool my plan”. No more waiting at all, in fact. Because right now I can walk. Right now I can use my hands. Right now I can play on the floor with my children. The blessings of ‘right now’ are all around me, they are staggering in their enormity, and they always have been. Was the Lord just waiting for those last few vestiges from my own plan to fall away so He could introduce me to the real plan, the one that would actually bring me more happiness than I thought was possible? So now although there is still a list of things I cannot do, I’ve left it on the foyer floor with the tears that hopefully drowned it.

M.S. brought me my new plan. M.S. opened my eyes to my new life, and it is still beautiful.

How has your plan changed?

Segullah Gift Cards!

Justine — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:29:50 +0000

Artist Leslie Graff has graciously donated the use of some of her artwork for our first in an artists series of cards available through Segullah. The link is over on the right side-bar here at the blog, or click here. They are sold in sets of 8, and are available now.

Thank you Leslie!

Male’ yad

Justine — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:30:47 +0000

My Testimony for Today

As I walked into church last week, I shook hands with the people I passed by, I embraced the sisters I saw, I patted the children underfoot. My hands touched and moved across the members of our ward as we mingled with each other before the services started.

On Monday, I washed and folded laundry, wrote two thank you notes, played with a pencil while working through 5th grade math homework.

As I worked in my kitchen on Tuesday, I held a telephone to make Visiting Teaching arrangements. I ladled soup into containers to take to neighbors. I wrapped up cookies for children to take to school and enjoy.

Wednesday brought my hands into contact with a talk from Elder Uchtdorf to read and prepare to teach. They made notations, underlined, and thumbed through the scriptures. I spent time sweeping, hugging a distraught friend, and fumbling along the keys during piano practice with daughters.

During much of the daylight on Thursday, I worked in my calling, taking care of much needed items that I had been set apart to do. I found myself hugging and cuddling with children in the evening, and holding hands with my sweetheart as the day drew to a close.

There was only one goal for Friday, which was accomplished by keeping my arm around my daughter’s shoulders as we spent the day together, ignoring most everything else to visit and strengthen each other.

As this week is drawing to a close, I consider what my hands have seen this week. Male’yad is the Hebrew word which the King James Bible has translated into ‘consecration’. The word consecration is, in Hebrew, and translated literally, “filled hands”, or sometimes “open hands”.

As I stretch out my open hand to embrace someone at church, idle away on the computer, or ladle soup for neighbors, I fill my hands with that which I have dedicated my time. Are my hands open to give and to receive? Are they filled with the work of the Lord? I have covenanted to do so, and how I spend my time – where my hands are busy – tells the Lord where I am truly willing to sacrifice. My hands speak to the Lord in their actions every day, filling themselves with the treasures I truly hold.

Hugh Nibley stated, “the “filled hand” is the widespread sign of offering sacrifice.”1 I pray my sacrifice this coming week will be one that fills my hands with the work of God. I hope my open hand is filled with the sacrifice of my time that will keep the Spirit in my life, and make my work a true consecration to the Lord. I pray I can live up to the covenants I have made for the use of these hands.

1. Hugh Nibley, “Sacred Vestments,” Temple and Cosmos, 106.

The Ugliest Time of the Year

Justine — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:45:07 +0000

I hate politics.

I know, I know, I used to love it. I used to get a thrill in all the craziness of the political game. I used to thrive on the chaos, and swell to the sound of debate.

Now, I just want everyone to be quiet and play nice. (I think I blame my children for this change.)

I belong to no party or faction. I have friends running for all sorts of positions, some of them competing against each other. I try as diligently as I can to bury my head in the sand and ignore all the ugly words tossed about during the weeks leading up to each first Tuesday in November.

This year is no exception.

Why do politics bring out the worst in people? Everyone tends to think they’re right, which leads to the fiery darts of indignation, which leads to unkind and untoward behavior in even the gentlest of people.

And since I live in a house that’s probably very much like your house, I listen to fighting on a regular basis – silly, incidental fighting over the most mundane of details. The fighting every campaign season sounds too much like the bickering I hear over why the salt wasn’t passed across the dinner table properly, or why “it wasn’t my fault!” that some particular transgression occurred.

I just want the fighting to end. I usually end up voting for the person that seems the least mean, which is no way at all to make a well-informed decision.

So, do you notice this in your community? Why do you think it gets so ugly? Local politics really boils down to a bunch of ants arguing over an anthill’s slope and size. How on earth do otherwise moral and good people justify behaving like unruly children turning the screws on their playground enemy. Was there ever a time in the world where we could disagree civilly? Is the idea of polite discourse an illusion?

Edited to Add: I want to make sure this discussion, if it happens, is about the ideas of civility, not about any politics itself. I have no use for political debate at the moment, I mostly just lament the decline of civility, if it ever existed.

Twoo Wuv

Justine — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:01:17 +0000

In the late 1950′s, a man was stirred by the soul of a woman in his ward. He couldn’t get this woman off his mind. He discussed the matter with his Bishop. He had only spoken to her once. The story winds and meanders for a couple of months, and ends with the boy and the girl sitting in the Bishop’s office. The boy still hadn’t had a proper conversation with the girl.

The Bishop told them to get married.

Three weeks later, they were husband and wife.

Still happily married.

——————————————-

It’s the early 1960′s, a girl is beginning her freshman year at University. Visiting home one weekend, her father has a young man at dinner with the family. “He’s in medical school. He’s Catholic. He’s Italian. It’s settled.” The arrangement is not well veiled in this list of his attributes.

One month later, they wed.

Still happily married.
——————————————-

There is a heavy value in today’s society placed on romance. We sing about it, write about it, make movies about it. We herald it as a cause worthy of death. We spend billions of dollars watching movies that involve woo-ing. The romance novel industry is another billion dollar enterprise. It would seem we all want to know and believe that romance is alive and well, that a kind of love still exists that makes your tie flap, your knees weak, and your head woozy.

I remember well the “drunken state” I found myself in when I first met my husband. I almost lost my job, I became unable to coherently string together words in his presence. I buttoned my shirts up wrong.

But it, of course, didn’t last. And I might say emphatically how glad I am that it didn’t. Now, instead of my blood pressure rising in happiness at seeing my husband, my blood pressure drops. My heart has stopped skipping beats, but instead slows down in peace and calm when he is around.

I listened to a teacher recently refer to marriage as a mission. Our mission being to see that the other partner become a Queen or King in Heaven.

That doesn’t sound very romantic. It actually sounds like a lot of work. It’s a work I am privileged and happy to undertake. But it’s a work, nonetheless.

And watching the two marriages from the stories above, I’ve seen that it doesn’t actually take romance to make it work. It takes commitment. It takes dedication. It takes duty. Those aren’t very sexy words, but they’ve filled me with more satisfaction and happiness than romance ever ever could.

I think I was sold a lie about romance.

The message I remember from popular culture was clear – romance was the goal. I was always looking for ‘True Love’, but my conception of what True Love was… it involved a lot of flower bouquets and long periods of staring into someone’s eyes. It involved smoldering kisses and romantic getaways.

Romance is certainly nice – but the last twenty years have taught me that hard work is nicer. Working together with my spouse to take care of each other, to push each other, to wade through hard times together, it means more to me than every single rose petal and longing glance.

And now, I see friends passing up worthy and upright relationships because he doesn’t make them weak in the knees. I don’t know how to feel about this. No Bishop in his right head would ever – in this decade – tell two people to get married. And yet I see wonderful people waiting for the magical feeling that movies portray, waiting for the fairy dust to descend over them. Waiting and waiting and waiting, and never finding true happiness. I also see marriages ending because the flutters of early love waned. Spouses chasing that ever elusive feeling of ‘new romance’, and leaving their families in shambles in the wake of their quest.

I know I waited for it and expected it. Which really gives me no license to talk about it, I know. I know in many ways I got lucky. Women ten times more amazing and competent than me are still waiting. But it makes me sad.

I’m certainly not advocating arranged marriage. But I think if we understood that marriage is a mission, a work, a labor of happiness, maybe we could enter marriage with smarter eyes. And maybe we’d stick it out a little longer.

Because for me, laboring for happiness makes it sweeter and more enduring than any bestowal of happiness ever could have. And there’s probably no marriage on earth that doesn’t have to work for it. Sending the message that ‘True Love’ somehow makes it easy is a dangerous road to walk. We all see the fallout of that message around us.

So, help me out. I know romance isn’t wrong. But how do I teach my own children to value ‘working’ relationships. To see that enduring love is a labor of love, not a constant candle-lit dinner? And can we influence the adult world around us? Is it appropriate to somehow show that romance is hollow? I just can’t stand to watch any more friends’ marriages fail. I can’t stand the thought of watching one more man leave his wife in search of Molly Ringwald.

I Get by With A Little Love from my Friends

Justine — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:54:42 +0000

I climbed the ‘Y’ in Provo with my girlfriends on Thursday. We pounded out the 12% grade, checking our heart rate monitors (to make sure we weren’t dead… you know), we panted and huffed. We laughed and gabbed while we trekked up the hill as fast as we could. We’re trying, us middle aged mommas, to kick each other into better shape.

What we’re succeeding at doing is keeping each other sane.

I’ve been exercising with some of these women for years. We used to run together, but now that I can’t run anymore, they decided to also stop running so we could stick together. We’ve taken up climbing mountains. And biking.

“The important thing is that we do it together,” one of them said when they quit running in solidarity with me, “We’ll walk together.”

She brought me to tears that day, the day she gave up running because I had to give up running.

As we got toward the bottom of the mountain, almost back at the car, my legs were numb, my knees were threatening to buckle. I held on to one of my friends shoulders as I hobbled my way off the trail. I banged on my legs with my fist, trying to get the feeling back, and together we laughed about her pushing me up the mountain in a wheelchair.

I have M.S., and it has started to rob me of the long road of life that I thought lay ahead of me. It has detoured me in strange and unexpected ways. It has cost me a few relationships and has laid claim to what I thought were essential parts of my identity.

But I have been dearly repaid for those losses by my girlfriends.

The Hebrew word for friend is (roughly) ra’ar. The word shares it’s roots intimately with the word Shepherd. The Savior speaks of His friends often in the scriptures. He begins dozens of sentences in the New Testament with, “Friend, …”

And then the Savior transitions into Shepherd. He uses these words to describe the same things. He uses the language of friend to complement the language of shepherd.

My girlfriends are watching over me. I hope I’m watching over them. The Savior, that “Great Shepherd of the Sheep”, is my friend and a beautiful example of friendship. He sent me shepherds to guard over my tender soul and keep it safe from the ravening wolves.

So we hobbled to the car together. We talked about climbing it again. We talked about climbing as long and as often as we can.

We didn’t talk about running.

And then we ate cookies.

I love my girls.

Learning to Walk

Justine — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:01:48 +0000

There is, in our culture, an interesting pressure about correctness, about avoiding errors. It shows itself in words like competence, excellence, and perfection. It shows itself in how we treat each other in our friendships, in our families, in our professional lives. We are largely expected to behave without error as we navigate through our lives, and errors are met with scorn, disappointment, and sometimes anger. Mistakes are met with reprimands and rebukes, although often silent ones.We’re harsh with someone that cut us off, someone that didn’t say hello, someone that didn’t say the right thing.

I will admit than when others offend me, or make mistakes in judgment, I sometimes silently judge them unkindly. I tarnish their character in my mind. I am too harsh.

But more so, I am harsh with myself. If I say an errant comment or make a poor financial choice, I tend to fear all is lost. I beat myself up and worry I will be eternally tormented for it, or at the very least punished severely here on earth. I tend to see my mistakes as small or large chinks in my character, drawing me farther away from the Lord, from the Spirit, from my goals. Repentance is hard for me to accept fully. I always wonder if I have done enough, if I have really really been forgiven. Messing up just feels… irrevocable.

Have you ever watched a little child learn to speak? It’s fascinating, and it melts your heart. I am watching my three year old try again and again to say the right words, and that’s about as good as it gets in motherhood. There’s nothing more amazing to me than to know I can help someone learn communication. And learning to walk? Falling over and over and over but getting back up every time. It’s wonderful to watch, and it gives me enormous happiness to be a part of.

And here’s where I learned my lesson yesterday…

“I am but a a little child” I Kings 3:7

“…and a little child shall lead them” Isa. 11:6

“Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little a child, he shall not enter therein” Mark 10:15

“…cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive” 3 Nephi 9:22

“And who receiveth you as a little child, receiveth my kingdom” D&C 99:3

Children’s early attempts to communicate are not only accepted, they are applauded. It seems the worse the early language is, the more encouragement the child gets. My three year old hears words of encouragement every day about trying new things and not being afraid to fail. He hears “good try” and “keep working” from every corner. It wouldn’t ever occur to me to reprimand him for speaking incorrectly or not walking with a straight gait. I can’t imagine punishing him while he is trying so hard to learn. In fact, watching him mess up and try, try again gives me great joy.

I, too, am trying so hard to learn, but I keep messing up. I keep saying the wrong words, falling over my feet on the ground. I am learning to speak the language, I am learning to sound out the words of love and charity. I mess it up all the time. I make the wrong choice, I can’t seem to find my balance. I say something wrong, or I don’t say something when I should. The actions in my head don’t always turn into the actions in my feet.

But I’m trying. I’m trying over and over and over. And I’m listening for encouragement. And studying this yesterday gave me the most hope I’ve felt in a long time. Hope that I can be more encouraging, and that I can mess up and fall down and still be loved.

And I can cling to hope, knowing that the Lord is watching over me (and us), and smiling as I mess up yet again.

“Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers” D&C 112:10

The Lord is holding my hand while I gather my feet underneath me and try again.

Be gentle with each other today, we’re all trying to get the words out right and step in the right direction.

Really? I mean, Really?

Justine — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:21:31 +0000

Overheard while wandering through Borders with my husband:

Young 20-something with a Twilight t-shirt on: “Umm, do you still carry any Twilight umbrellas? I saw them here last week.”

Employee of Borders: “Yeah, I’ll walk you over. They’re here in this display.” (walks her to a large Twilight display)

Twilight girl: “Wow! (looks at display) This is awesome.”

Employee: “Yeah, it is, huh? I just got back from Forks last week. It was an incredible time.”

At this point, Don and I had to walk in the other direction because we were in hysterics for laughing.

Now, if you haven’t read Twilight, you need to know that Forks is the town where the books take place. Apparently (I didn’t know this), it’s a real place.

I’ll admit that we tried really hard to not be exude snobbish erudition and laugh and mock. But the conversation was almost too much for me to take in. I couldn’t wrap my head around any sort of reality where someone would spend money and time to go to the town that Twilight is based in. What would be there? What would they do? And how could going there be an “incredible time”? Is there a real house or structure there to visit? Could you sit on Bella’s front porch? And lastly, ummm, really? You really want to do that?

About 20 minutes later, as we were still talking about this, trying to understand the motivation, it occurred to me that I would probably spend money to go sit on Edith Wharton’s porch. I would spend money to visit the Bronte sisters home. I would spend money to find out if Virginia Woolf really had a room of her own.

Is it any different? Or am I just being an insufferable snob?(because it’s entirely possible)

I wouldn’t really care to visit Darbyshire, or visit the fabled house of Fyodor of Karamazov fame, but seeing Austen’s house or Dostoevsky’s stomping ground would be fascinating.

So am I just repulsed by the fact that it’s “pop culture” instead of “high culture”? And who decides what “high culture” is anyway? Am I every bit the same literary groupie?

Summer’s Envy

Justine — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 06:06:02 +0000

I do NOT want school to start.

Right now, we’re swimming in the pool every afternoon, we’re leaving rooms messy, we’re reading on the patio in the evening shade. We’re licking Popsicles, dancing to U2 waaayyyy past bedtime, going to week-long bug camps, scout camps, girls camps.

We just got back from a fantastic drive-across-the-country vacation where we stopped whenever we wanted, ate whatever we wanted, slept when we felt like it, stopped at Corn Museum’s and The World’s Largest Egg Beater display, listened to books on CD for hours on end.

Why would I want to end it all?

My kids will be taken from me for 8 hours a day; I’ll be left with the ugly reality of dirty toilets and dusty floor molding. I will stand in my empty house each morning wondering how it all came to this. I might have more time to write, but what will I write about? Homework? Spaghetti stains? Math Club? I’d homeschool them if I thought I could actually teach them anything at all about polynomials or planetary orbits, but my homeschooling attempts would mostly involve reading and playing.

I haven’t always felt this way.

Many an August has brought the supernal pleasure of watching my children head out the door for matriculating endeavors. I would heave a heavy sigh of relief to know that regimented and structured life had returned to our home.

But not this summer.

This summer has been a joy.

It’s been a choice.

I’ve decided that my happiness is mine to choose, I’ve decided to listen to all that advice I so easily dish out to my kids. My happiness is not something bestowed upon me like a royal crown. And since I have no idea how long my life will be, or how healthy my future will be, I’m speeding things up. I’m choosing now to enjoy it. I’m not going to wait any longer for the happy fairy to find me. I dragged her over to my house. Why did it take all that pain for me to realize that I can enjoy my life now?

I choose.
I choose.
I choose.

And I did.

Thank you Lord for my choices.