Comments on: Things Fall Apart

By: Melody

Melody — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:19:15 +0000

Beautifully written.

And so fascinating to me — regardless of where the tumultuous river of familial discomfort begins, eventually, by the grace of God, we all end up in the calm sea of understanding.

By: D.

D. — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:39:39 +0000

Excellent post!

â€œOkonkwoâ€™s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.â€â€”-Chinua Achebe, â€œThings Fall Apartâ€

Interesting for me to read this at a time in my life in which I am second guessing my deliberate efforts to not resemble my parents while at the same time noticing the same determination on the part of my own children growing into adulthood (essentially to be better than I am). I have tried not to be hurt by this, but rather to embrace it by explaining that that is the duty of each generation–to start from whence they came and progress a little bit further. I guess that is the most hopeful approach.

By: FoxyJ

FoxyJ — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:08:41 +0000

A few weeks ago I was talking with some sisters from my ward and suddenly they all started sharing how much they love visiting their mothers because they feel so loved and nurtured and they get to be “kids” again. I felt horrible because my mother is not the nurturing type and even as a child I don’t think I had the same type of treatment as they did. But, later, I realized that I love my mother, even if it’s for different reasons. I’ve been working on loving her for who she is, rather than being disappointed because she doesn’t live up to the ideal I would like her to be. She hasn’t changed, but my attitude towards her has and I really do love her. Even if she doesn’t bake me cookies or do my laundry.

By: Brooke

Brooke — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 21:10:33 +0000

I love that last line, Mara. I feel like that’s how I’m always to explain the way I feel about the people I love– that I love them because of their imperfections. Their oddities and past trials endear them to me.

I hope they can say the same for me, full as I am of past mistakes as well.

Wouldn’t the world be so boring if we were all alike?

By: Justine

Justine — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:30:21 +0000

I was recently at a church event, listening to someone speak, and almost sitting mouth agape at how different her view of the world was from my own. I couldn’t shake off the strangeness of her comments and the wholly different view of life than mine. and yet, as she finished speaking and bore her testimony, she spoke a powerful testimony of the Gospel. That much we had in common.

It was a truly eye opening experience for me. I spent the entire rest of the day thinking about this woman who was so strange looking and stounding and different from me. But she still had a testimony. She still bore witness of the Savior.

I guess it’s probably a good thing we’re all so different. So boring would be the world if we weren’t all colorful and unique. It’s given me great emotional release to come to understand that I don’t have to be a ‘perfect mormon woman’ to feel the love of the Lord. And the Lord is not American, or anglo-saxon, or urban, or hippie, or republican, or cowboy, or any of those things. He’s all of them. I can fit in where I choose.

Easy to say… heh?