I sat in the hospital waiting room reading celebrity magazines, a guilty pleasure I rarely indulge in. My husband was in an operating room in Boston having a pin installed in his hand to help heal a fractured bone. In the great scheme of things, it wasn’t too big a deal.

Another family walked in and sat on the couches in a different corner of the room. We had a short exchange of pleasantries, after which one of that group said:

“Yuh not from around heah, ah yuh” – which, being translated, means: “You’re not from around here, are you.”

I told them I grew up in Illinois.

“You roll yuh ahhs.” (“You roll your “r’s.”)

After we had placed each other geographically by mother tongue, I learned that their loved one was having heart surgery. It was serious and life threatening. I settled back into my chair, and they carried on their own quiet conversation.

I started thinking about the room we were in. I had the sense that the walls and furnishings were thick with the love, grief, hope and longing absorbed from the intensity of all who ever had reason to be there. It was as though there were stories, weeping and prayers infused into the wallpaper just waiting for someone with “ears to hear” – if there were anyone who could bear up under the weight of it all.

This experience came back to me recently when I was given a new assignment as part of my morning shift at the Chicago temple. A new project was to train ordinance workers to handle office duties as well as the other mix of services we provide (from priestly functions to folding the laundry – all holy work in my opinion.) My assignment that day was to transcribe names from the prayer roll recording.

Besides being able to write down the names of dear ones with “afflictions” or concerns on paper at the temple itself, people can call the temple and leave names (spoken clearly, and spelled out, please) on an automated temple roll recording. Those names are then transcribed and made available with the handwritten ones for prayers on the altars of the temple.

As I transcribed the names that day I had a similar sensation to what I’d had in the hospital waiting room years before. Each slow syllable was potent and loaded with so many layers of love and concern and crisis. The voices varied (that day they were all women) – chipper, aged, matter-of-fact, anxious, many with Western glosses or Midwestern rolled “r’s.” Each of those voices represented loving, gentle thoughts or powerful tsunamis of turmoil on behalf of the person whose name they had just pronounced.

As I heard name after name after name, I felt a sense of awe. Of course I wasn’t privy to the particulars – just as the silent waiting room never shared its confidences. Each name I heard represented a specific child of God grappling with a challenge along the thorny spectrum of mortal experience. Each name was spoken by a thoughtful soul longing to connect that person with the energies of prayerful mortals and the compassionate Divine.

This litany became a prayer of its own – holy, charged, drenched in pleading. And that litany, that list of names – but so much more – made its way to the altars of our God, seeking the mercies of Him who surely “hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” (Isaiah 53:4)

Related posts:

1. Pray for me; heal my heart
2. That Thing That is of Most Worth
3. Sometimes, Always, at the Temple

While I feel like I’ve always known that love is foundation of the gospel, I’ve never really connected it specifically to testimony. Like many parents, I worry that I don’t do enough to teach my children, that I’m inconsistent, that my children will pay a price for my lack of faithfulness. Just last night my total plan for family home evening was, “Let’s all think happy thoughts, eat brownies, and go to bed.” (Not exactly high gospel, though enthusiastically received.)

But the idea that love itself can generate testimony has given me something to think about. Of course, making sure my children feel loved is vital (and something I’m working on constantly). But I’m thinking that my love of other things plays a role as well, as the evidence of what I love is splayed out for them to see, all day, every day. I think my kids could tell you that I love my laptop, love art museums, love playing Schubert on the piano, love dancing around the family room to Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger.” But do they know that I love the scriptures more than I love chocolate? Am I as enthusiastic about attending church as I am about our weekly library visit?

I’m pretty sure I know what they would say.

So I’m beginning to see that one of my responsibilities is to make my love of the gospel evident in my life. Not just have family home evening, but love gathering, love being with them, love talking about what is meaningful to us. Not just have scripture study, but love the scriptures. Speak of Christ. Express joy in the gospel. Because I know there will be times (many) when we are too tired for FHE, mornings (so many!) that are too rushed to read, evenings when we’re too scattered to pray. But if my children know that I love it, maybe it will be enough for them.

And maybe it will be enough for me too.

Related posts:

1. Lunacy
2. Cover to cover
3. The Technophile and the Technophobe Go to Church

Today’s guest post is from Samantha Strong Murphey, who aspires to be the next J.K. Rowling, but so far, every time she sits down to write her masterpiece, it comes out as a masked version of Harr

I have wedding demons.

Like my own hell-bent ghosts of Christmas past, they follow me, haunt me, shame me. They keep me company.

The dress — cheapest one I didn’t hate — picked to prove something.

The flowers, rushed.

The cake, expensive and tasteless and who cares about cake?

The tables, sloppy vision, blah and blah.

The photographer, perfect. Just perfect. But it’s hard to forget my misplaced pickiness and bridezilla moments with her — ugly moments hovering in retrospect.

The organization at the reception, messy timing, needless waste.

I could go on. I do go on — in my head in moments of weakness, too frequent moments these past 20 months. I stew and regret and then hate myself for caring — and for still caring — and for seeing no end to the caring in sight.

If I could go back, I’d get married in February. I’d wear a fluttery, fairy-like tea-length dress, sparkly pumps, hair down, no veil, tomato red lipstick. I’d have a little bouquet, something white and fluffy-looking. I’d have a cozy little open house at the clubhouse in my parent’s neighborhood in Midway the night before. No toasts, no speeches — those could come at a low-key luncheon at some low-key restaurant the next day after the ceremony. But I would perform some well-rehearsed, over-the-top karaoke love song that night. Just me. No one else. Then we’d sit by the fire on the big stone hearth and chat with friends and family. There’d be mossy little tree stumps on the tables with our initials carved in a heart on each one. More white, fluffy flowers — peonies? Ranunculus, maybe? Ice cream cookie sandwich bar. Glitter everywhere.

But I can’t go back. And even if I could change the silly details, it wouldn’t matter in the end, because the result would be the same — I married the love of my life that day, the honest-to-goodness love of my life.

I chant that to myself when my imagination heads straight for the dead-end past of superficial wedding would-haves.

I force-feed myself mature thoughts.

The fact is, the day I got married was a bright and wonderful day at the end of a long train of dark ones. My engagement was a time of confusion for me, pain even. My wedding day — for all of its charms — was a product of that period. It felt a little messy, a little unsettling. It felt, in short, like a wedding planned by someone else. And, in short, it had been.

My wedding was planned by a girl in turmoil and experienced by a girl at peace.

And someday — hopefully someday soon — I’ll make my peace with that.

Related posts:

1. Here comes the bride…and cake and flowers
2. Marriage Miscommunication
3. No Hearts

As I got ready for the wedding luncheon that morning, I took extra time doing my hair and makeup, because I once dated Sherri’s husband’s younger brother Matt (before Sherri and Curt got married). Whenever I attend Sherri’s extended family functions (a grand total of three times in the last twenty-five years), I run into Matt. Matt and I never dated seriously, but I consider him an old boyfriend of sorts, so I want to look my best whenever I happen to see him at, say, a temple sealing or a wedding luncheon—it’s a pride thing, you know? I just don’t want him thinking, “Wow, I really dodged a bullet there.”

I’ve had my share of awkward meetings with ex-boyfriends and ex-sort-of-boyfriends, but my encounters with Matt rank near the top—such as when I was Sherri’s bridesmaid and Matt was a groomsman, just a couple of months after Matt and I stopped dating. Especially memorable is the first time I saw Matt after I got married: my husband, Scott, and I were living in California and I was six months pregnant when Sherri and Curt visited Curt’s parents in Idaho and invited us to fly up for a visit. The plan was that Scott and I would rent a car and meet Curt and Sherri at Curt’s parents’ house, stay one night there, and then drive with Curt and Sherri to the family cabin for a couple days while Curt’s parents took care of Curt and Sherri’s baby.

The flight up to Idaho on that hot summer day was turbulent, and I was still struggling with pregnancy queasiness, so when we pulled up to Curt’s parents’ house I was shaky, bloated, green at the gills, and sweaty, my bangs plastered to my forehead—oh, and did I mention I was six months pregnant? Scott and I hopped out of the car—well, I sort of heaved myself out of the car—and who happened to be outside to greet us but Matt? As I watched him and Scott shake hands, I suddenly had the urge to laugh as I realized that they were dressed identically: chambray shirts, khaki pants, brown loafers—even the exact same braided brown belt (yes, this was during the 80’s). When it dawned on them simultaneously that they had on the exact same outfit, they both flushed bright red. And so commenced a rather awkward evening which culminated in Scott and me being assigned to sleep, of all places, in Matt’s bed.

My children still get a kick out of that story. I thought about it again as I drove to Sherri’s daughter’s wedding luncheon. As luck would have it, Scott and I had been invited to another wedding that day, as well, so he attended that one and I went to Sherri’s daughter’s wedding luncheon by myself. Sherri’s daughter was radiant—the spitting image of Sherri as a bride—and Sherri and I hugged and laughed and caught up, not feeling a day older than when we were roommates and newlyweds, yet suddenly finding ourselves middle-aged, with children on missions and getting married, wondering where the last twenty-five years went.

And yes, Matt was there, looking older, too, yet the same. Seated at different tables, we didn’t talk to each other until after the luncheon. As I was preparing to leave, he came up and said hi and leaned in to give me a hug, but because I was facing the other direction and only half turned to hug him, I came in at an awkward angle, accidentally squishing my nose against his neck and almost touching his neck with my lips. Not as awkward as some of the other post dating encounters we’ve had, but awkward enough. At any rate, it gave me a funny story to tell Scott and the kids when I got home.

And now it’s your turn. Tell me about your awkward encounters with ex-boyfriends, Facebook encounters included. Do you worry about how you look when you run into someone you once dated? And do you still feel like you’re twenty-something inside, even though you’re, ahem, considerably older?

Related posts:

1. Sailing to Manti
2. Wedding Demons
3. The Ones Who Got Away (and I’m so glad they did)

Popham Beach State Park, Maine

In a recent Worldwide Leadership Training Conference, attendees heard someone’s thoughts on “that thing that is of most worth to a woman in this life.” If someone asked you what that “thing of most worth” is, how would you answer?

Some years ago I went through a very tough time. Metaphorically speaking I felt like my ribs had been extracted. My pulses and rhythms still functioned, but my supports and protection were gone. My mother had just died. My kids were asserting themselves in creative and dumbfounding ways, following their natural call to become “agents unto themselves.” My husband was reorganizing his heart and soul, doing important internal work, but I had no idea where I’d end up when his “remodeling” was over. My soul felt like it was, to quote Yeats, “turning and turning in a widening gyre.”

In the midst of this untethering, our family joined another family for a week at a cabin in Maine. One day we piled into our cars and headed to Popham Beach State Park. As we pulled into the parking lot, the cassette player (yes, it was a while ago) blared John Rutter’s “For the Beauty of the Earth” loud enough to shake the minivan walls. It certainly fit the gorgeous setting.

The kids piled out of the car and dashed for the sand. My husband and my friend’s husband went off on a manly walk-about. My friend and I settled with the other sunbathers on beach towels. Since the tide was out, the water wasn’t that close. She read her book, and I—well, I stewed in the possibility that I could lose absolutely everything I valued. Not just in a cosmic way; it was practical, too. I was too far away to be of any physical use to my kids in the water if something dire happened. It wasn’t out of the question that my husband could decide just not to come back.

As I lay there pondering, praying, trying to keep breathing in and out (despite the lack of ribs), a passage of scripture came to my mind. It was Romans 8:35-38:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The first thing I noticed was the checklist of worries. I wasn’t too concerned about famine, nakedness, sword or principalities, but pretty much the rest of the travails seemed like present dangers.

Then I focused on the powerful bookend consolations: “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord”. I let the meaning sweep over me like soothing tidewaters.

I found out as we headed to the car after our afternoon at the beach that the real tidewaters had been up to no good.

My 8 year old (who had only just had his first swimming lessons) told me he had been standing in the shallow waters but got knocked over by a good wave. After much sputtering and angst he righted himself. It was scary for him, but in the end it was a successful accomplishment that improved his confidence.

The other two, along with our friends’ son (all good swimmers), had ventured further out. My 11-year-old found himself unable to catch up with the older two and began floundering. An attentive lifeguard caught him, brought him to the other two and helped all three of them get back to safer grounds. “There are undertows out there,” the lifeguard told them. “Sometimes they’re impossible to fight.”

Those three older kids were snickering and poking each other by the time we got the story out of them, laughter being just a cover for the fright of their close call.

My husband came back with our friend no worse for the walk.

I thought again about that scripture and the fact that I really could have lost at least one child that day. God wasn’t joking with His litany of things that could occur. God wasn’t telling me, “Don’t worry. I’ll take all these difficulties away.” He was saying, “If everything you treasure gets stripped away from you or life takes you or your dear ones to unimaginably hard places, I will always know and love you, Linda. I will always love you. Hold on to this truth, this hope. Hold on.”

That thing that is of most worth for this woman in this life is to live the gospel with a sense of God’s unwavering and radical love for her.
Complete sentence.
Complete life.

Related posts:

1. a different sort of happily-ever-after
2. UP CLOSE: Living Single– Titanic Tears and Ministering Angels – Just Another Day Really
3. The Great Escape

Really though, I appreciate that extra bit of heart in a lot of ways. I love depth in conversation. I like to talk deep. I like to talk about ideas and experiences. I have a hard time getting through without referencing a study or something really interesting from NPR or the New York Times. I love it when people listen to me, when they remember those things going on in my life, when they get excited with me over accomplishments or upcoming events and trips. I love it when they tell me about their ups and downs and great ideas. And compliments… who doesn’t love those? I don’t often forget a very sincere compliment. They go in a special place in my head (kind of like that top drawer of my 6-year-old’s dresser where he keeps all his school prizes, found money, and piñata loot) and they get stashed there for rainy soul days when you need a little validation.

Then just today I came home from Christmas vacation and found a surprise package in my mailbox (it contained treats—are we getting a theme here?), a sincere note, and cards of a friend’s sketches. It was the most welcome thing as I had just enumerated to my husband somewhere along the New Jersey turnpike on our drive from Virginia back home to Massachusetts that what awaited me at home was a list of the most dreaded mom tasks imaginable—cue unpack from vacation, post vacation grocery run, post office, library, laundry, Christmas décor take down, 2 week mail sort, and an accumulation of business tasks. My night was made supremely better by this personal offering.

I have practically lived the last month in the fleece pajama pants sent recently along with a stay-warm-this-winter note from a dear friend who jumped ship after a decade and a half in New England and moved to the Pacific Northwest. It was her way of saying I love you and I miss you and I know exactly what your next few months will be like.

I could go on and on about the friend who is known for her handwritten notes, homemade cards, sewing creations, or the one who sends the best birthday video messages, or the one who dutifully comments on your blog.

A few months ago, as the RS presidency member talked about the pies that would be served for an upcoming event, I leaned over to a friend and said, “I love pie—I want all the pie to myself,” to which she responded, “You want a pie? I’ll make you a whole pie.” “Really?” I was shocked. Pie baking is a labor of love. Sure enough, that Wednesday night there was a homemade pie waiting just for me. I was so excited—downright giddy—my own pie! It made my day; it made my week. I know, here I go again with the food, but it’s a trademark L Graff thing.

At a regional conference at BYU one of the speakers said, “Our love is often lazy in its failure to individualize.” This thought has stuck with me for these past 14 years. It reminds me to put in that little extra effort, to use my agency to make life better for others. It’s amazing how the smallest things are really what make our days worth living. So here is to wishing you all a personal 2012.

What is meaningful to you? What simple, personal things have made you day?

Related posts:

1. My Christmas Report
2. Posts of Christmas Past
3. I Believe In Yesterday

Christmas is about Receiving

We are thick in the season of giving. Retail merriment may jing-jing-jangle our nerves, but many of us bask in thinking about our giftees and what might bring them joy. This is progress from our less-enlightened “gimme” days. Wonderful! We are learning to be good gift givers.

The flip side of this is that this is also the season of receiving. Just how enlightened are our receiving skills this Christmas time?

I used to think gift cards were bland and impersonal. It was hard for me to give them and somewhat disappointing to receive. Not so these days. Now I find a well-suited gift card (given or received) to be very satisfying. Maybe not gift cards to grocery stores, but I could be wrong.

Getting gifts from very young children is good exercise in receiving. In nursery or pre-school, kids may not even know how to hold a crayon yet. The tots likely aren’t thinking of Mommy when they make a “present” for her with a jot with the red crayon. However, their scribbled bits can be interpreted by an aware adult as evidence of the child’s growing social and motor skills. They stayed in nursery long enough to participate in the activity, after all. That affirmation is a joy to receive! It’s not the “masterpiece” itself we’re receiving and grateful for. Sometimes the meta-message takes some digging.

Speaking of meta-messages, “receiving” is a rich word in our Mormon lexicon. When we are confirmed we are told to “receive the Holy Ghost.” As a convert with a well-developed spiritual life before joining the Church, I can’t say I noticed a particular shift or infusion of new “oomph” with this charge. Sometimes I think of it like a tuner on a radio. The Holy Ghost will always broadcast; how good am I at receiving It? When I “receive” that Gift, I vow to put myself in a frequency to hear It, feel Its humming presence and proceed with the impulses and messages I sense.

In sealing eternal marriages the man and woman promise to “receive” one another. (If something is received, it must have been given in the first place. That’s my take on wording that isn’t exactly identical.) Is there anything more humbling, open and trusting than that kind of exchange? Marriage is a setting requiring equal (and extraordinary) measures of responsibility and vulnerability.

Receiving in most profound ways, I think, is best accomplished without a lot of (jingle) bells and whistles (although expressed heartfelt “thank you”s and/or notes should be somewhere in the mix.) Isn’t the meta-message of the gift of this season found in reflection, awareness, gratitude, and a blessed balance of humility and majesty? Phillips Brooks, author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” said it well:

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming; but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.

How do you prepare to receive? Any memorable occasions of receiving gone grossly wrong or movingly right? What layers of meaning does “receiving” have for you?

Related posts:

1. What does it feel like?
2. Looking up
3. Milk before meat

Our typical Thanksgiving dinner

On a recent flight, my daughter sat next to an actress affiliated with a Chicago based comedy troupe. The actress needed some ideas for an upcoming Thanksgiving sketch routine and asked my daughter if she had any funny family holiday meal stories. The story my daughter shared was one my husband and I have no memory of. She insists we were there. Clearly the scene made a vivid impression on her.

She was a teenager, and we were enjoying a delicious feast with my sister’s reserved family when for no reason my daughter could fathom, my husband started talking about beef testicles – their size, texture, cultures that eat them and how they’re prepared. For you Westerners, maybe this isn’t such an unusual topic (what with your famed Rocky Mountain Oysters), but we’re Midwesterners with a strong dash of New England in us. Then again, my husband is a person of broad and varied knowledge and knows how to sound certain about things. He insists that he currently knows nothing about beef testicles in general and their culinary possibilities in particular.

I do remember a few odd Thanksgiving vignettes. In the mid-1970’s I was eager to get from Boston back home to Chicago for Thanksgiving. I saw a posting for someone looking for other Chicago-bound students looking for riders in their car. Five of us – three of us complete strangers to the others – squeezed ourselves into a Volkswagen Beetle and drove 18 hours straight, making only occasional stops. At one stop in the middle of the night I ordered a cup of chili at the all-night rest stop restaurant and spooned up a gnarly chunk of gristle that I swear was hairy. By contrast that year’s Thanksgiving meal with my family was beyond fantastic. When the weekend was over, I flew back to Boston.

When Chris and I were first married we joined our friends to make a feast. Not being totally comfortable yet with cooking and kitchens we wondered why the half and half never became whipped cream. We also learned the indelible lesson of making sure to have the lid on the blender before you puree the pumpkin soup.

One year my Chicago clan joined us in Boston for Thanksgiving dinner at Plimoth Plantation. The plantation was interesting with its period costumed interpreters who never broke character, but the meal was uninspired traditional fair served by waiters in a modern building with bland walls. More compelling was a visit to the Wampanoag Homesite where we got quite a different take on the first Thanksgiving Day.

What fond or funny Thanksgiving memories do you have? And, while we still have a little time before grocery shopping, can you share a favorite recipe?

Here are two exquisite recipes my family has nearly every Thanksgiving. (They’re recipes for flatlanders. Adjust as needed for higher altitudes.) In the picture above, the Rice Pudding is in the large yellow pot and the Praline Squash is toward the back in the orange pot.

Elegant Rice Pudding

1 c. water
1/2 c. short or medium grain white rice
1/2 vanilla bean, split (Whole Foods carries them. You can order them – and practically any other spice in the world from The Spice House.)
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. milk
1 c (1/2 pint) heavy cream
1/2 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 c. dark seedless raisins or dried sour cherries
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon boiling water

1. In 2-quart saucepan, heat water to boiling. Add rice, vanilla bean, and salt. Cook 10 minutes.

2. Add milk and cook over very low heat until rice is tender – about 10 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly butter 1 1/2 quart shallow baking dish.

4. In small bowl, combine cream, sugar and eggs; fold into rice mixture along with raisins or cherries. Remove vanilla bean and pour rice mixture into buttered baking dish. Sprinkle top of mixture evenly with cinnamon.

5. Place baking dish into a large baking pan in oven. Pour boiling water into baking pan to a depth of 1 inch. Bake 30-45 minutes or until pudding is firm and top surface is golden brown. Cool to room temperature on wire rack.

Serve at room temperature or refrigerate (covered) to serve chilled.

Praline Squash

2 packages winter squash, thawed
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
a dash of pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons soft butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
• Combine 1st four items and cook over low heat until butter melted in.
• Add this mixture to the beaten eggs.
• Pour into a greased 1 quart casserole.
• In a separate dish, combine the remaining 4 ingredients and sprinkle on
the casserole.
• Bake at 350o for 30 minutes. (adjust for altitude)

You can also find my dad’s fabulous apple sausage stuffing recipe (and many other great food related essays and recipes by LDS authors) in my book Saints Well Seasoned: Musings on how food nourishes us – body heart and soul here literally for pennies! (Warning: there are typos in Camilla’s cinnamon rolls and Jan’s Red Jello.)

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3. What to do with the leftover Easter candy . . .

Where he slips his hand across her knee. Where she puts her head upon his shoulder… First date? Old lovers? They are too quiet with one another to be new, and her hair seems askance and he seems calmed by her easy way. They must be married.

Where a mother fusses over a baby hidden in an expensive carriage, and how suddenly a fleck of a hand blooms above the tuft of swaddling blanket and visions of a redhead baby boy bloom in my head, unbidden… Simply because the hand was pale, and his mother was a ginger.

And my mind wanders with them all day, these people/characters filled out by my mind, apparent only in face. They are reduced to their mannerisms and accessories, taken out of context, in five seconds of one day.

It seems unfair. But in my defense I usually give them an imaginative vignette worthy of their most astonishing feature.

(Good or bad.)

My son just turned eight and on Sunday we met with the bishop for his baptism interview. Perhaps I should have insisted on Saturday [the-day-we-get-ready-for-Sunday] that he have a haircut or stuck to my weak decree of  “No Vans at church.” But I didn’t do any of those things and so he sat there, a thick swatch of hair blanketing his eyes, the toe of his faded shoes skimming the carpet back and forth underneath him.

He’s a quiet boy. So quiet that I think a lot of people assume that he’s a disrespectful kid. I frequently prompt him to answer questions and make eye contact and it feels silly to be reminding such a large child, but his heart is anxiety ridden, and his personality unsure, and when he grabs my hand through the fleece of an oversized sweatshirt, or still expects that I can carry him up the stairs to bed, I know his heart/mind/soul and what it thinks and feels. And I know it is pure and sweet and good.

The bishop talked and we listened. My son answered questions with the most imperceptible nods and suppressed mouth. The bishop paused at one point and smiled at my boy, “Wow, you are one quiet kid!” He said this as his eyes crinkled and welled, “But it’s ok because I was a really quiet kid too, and then they made me bishop and now I can’t stop talking.”

And there was a sudden moment that it was clear—the bishop saw my boy. The real boy. Not the old shoes, not the messy mop of hair, not the unwillingness to engage. He saw the boy inside, and the man he will be.

(And as a mom, I so appreciated that.)

I’ve glimpsed these moments too. One winter, driving downtown, I was one stoplight away from my destination when the traffic stopped. Though a few homeless people milled on the sidewalk outside my car, my heart began to hammer against my ribs as I watched a certain one. He was not different from any of the others, but something pulled me to him. The light changed to green and I quickly turned right and circled back around the block, praying aloud that he would still be there. He was, and I pulled up to him and rolled down the passenger window and called out. He walked towards my car as I reached money in my hand across the seat, and our eyes locked (eyes I will never forget) and what I said was “Merry Christmas,” but what I wanted to say and lacked courage for was, “You are my brother.”

He bowed his head at my offering, quiet gratitude or guilt for the sordid things my generosity would purchase, but I didn’t care, I needed to stop. I needed him to know he mattered, that I saw he was a child of God and part of me in the most basic and ethereal of all senses. And whether that exercise affirmed something in him or just me, I pulled away from the curb and burst into tears.

(And abandoned my errand all together. How could I after that sacred moment lost?)

I feel like my mother best explained it to me in the temple, the last few moments of being just her daughter, while we stood before a crystal sconce lit mirror in the bride’s room, all golden and soft shadow. Her hands fumbled with the edges of my dressing as she attempted the millions of buttons up my back and suddenly put her head in her hands and sobbed. “Mom?” I sought her reflection in the mirror. “I see you,” she said as she looked up. “I see what Heavenly Father sees. And I am honored.”

If we could really see what he sees, would we not be honored to be in the presence of so much nobility in spirit? Because that nobility lies in everyone: the couple, the mother, the quiet boy, the homeless man, the bride, you, them, your enemy, yourself. Perhaps we would love more, and more freely. Perhaps we would be stumbling over ourselves, lining up to serve one another. Perhaps we would just be more patient, kinder.

I wonder how this happens? How do we see God’s children as such every day? How do we see them as He sees them—their whole, real embodiment and true character—and not pick apart their parts?

And, have you ever had any moments like these?

Related posts:

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2. The light is red
3. Running with scissors

Scales of Justice

Justice and Mercy walk into a bar.

Justice overhears a customer order “another Shirley Temple, please.” Barkeep reminds the customer that he hasn’t paid for his last two yet.

Justice grabs the customer by the collar, yells, “You can’t pay your bill? You’re outta here!” and kicks him out the door.

Mercy goes out and drags the customer back in, orders a Shirley Temple for him, pays for it and pays his back tab as well.

Then, turning to Justice, Mercy grabs him by the collar, yells “You may be right, but why do you always have to be such a self-righteous, retentive, heartless jerk about it!?” and kicks him out the door.

Then Mercy goes out, drags Justice back in, puts salve on his scrapes, and buys him – and everyone else in the bar – a free Shirley Temple.

Which do you think are true about this (little lame) anecdote?

A) Neither Justice nor Mercy behaved very well.
B) Justice and Mercy behaved exactly as they should have, with Mercy having more chutzpah than he generally gets credit for.
C) In the end the blessings of a Temple are available to all.

This little romp leaves me musing on a couple wrestles I’ve had with the concepts of justice and mercy.

I learned about one in our Marriage and Family Relations Class taught in our Illinois ward by my friend, the fabulous Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife. One of the many challenges she says couples face is the insistence on “being right.”

Maybe you balk at the idea of letting some ridiculous pronouncement come out of your spouse’s mouth without the appropriate – and just – correction being made. I mean, really. To just let something that wrong/irrelevant/ungrammatical/insensitive, etc. go by unchecked? Never! The cause of truth is at stake!

Or maybe one of you trots out a parade of your partner’s past gaffes or mistakes whenever any new evidence of imperfection surfaces. Gotta hammer home the proof: one of you is perfect and the other, obviously, is not.

Yet, these situations where “justice” constantly trumps, if not mercy, at least kindness can corrode relationships. Sometimes the notion that you have to be right needs to be slapped upside the head. Use judgment, of course, but seek for connection, not for needing to be right all the time.

The other wrestle springs from my quibble with 2 Nephi 2:27.  In this verse we learn that we are free to “choose liberty and eternal life….or to choose captivity and death.” For me, most of my choices are not so stark. They are not between a good choice and a bad choice, but between two good choices. As my  son used to say “Who would take who in a fight?”: Prayer or action? Certainty or faith? Personal responsibility or delegation? Leniency or demanding high standards?

And even Justice or Mercy?

What experiences have you had with holding on to or relinquishing the need to “be right” in a relationship? With choices between good and bad? With choices between two goods? And, in particular, with Justice and Mercy?

Related posts:

1. A Paradox
2. Justice, Mercy, and Other Mysteries (Also, It’s Time to Send Your Submission to Our Journal)
3. Practicing Grace