Island

I was thinking about family this holiday season. I love my family and I hope to have one eventually. But why are they so necessary to happiness? I am going to spend Christmas morning serving in a homeless shelter. I could spend it with many people who have offered, but I don’t really want to. I feel closer to my family working at a shelter. When I was young, My parents would go every Saturday morning and we were eventually allowed to join helping cook and serve lunch for hundreds of people. We usually had to pour drinks, but that was fine. Rachel and I switched off at who got to go. Yes, going to a homeless shelter was the ultimate treat on Saturday mornings! But I always enjoyed those times just giving juice to people. I brought them a slight amount of happiness with no emotional commitment. That’s probably why I like acting as well: bringing people a slight amount of happiness without any emotional commitment. Just serving on Christmas makes me think that I should have been serving all year. I know there’s usually not enough time to commit during the school year, but I am going to Draper four times a week for three hour long rehearsals each time. It makes me think about how skewed my priorities are. Maybe it was the many years of therapy, but I have looked for ways to make me happy, not as much other people. This is probably because I now know that I have no control over the emotions of others and cannot make them happy no matter how hard I try. I think this belief has lead me to give up trying to make other people happy. I did try to make my Grandmother as happy as possible, but that was because she was sad and dying. Also she liked me to try to make her happy. But I can still make people happy as long as I remember to not try to validate myself through people’s happiness. I now try to validate myself through theatre, which is not good either. But I will not be able to be with my family until Christmas night, if the weather does not delay my plane flight. And my entire family will not be gathered this Christmas anyway. My Dad is in China working and Mario and Will will not be coming. I wonder if they will ever come to another Christmas?

So why does being with my family make life seem more whole? Is it because I grew up with them and childhood years are supposed to be happy? Is it because they are supposed to love me? No, its because they know me. They know the parts of me I don’t like people to know. They know the secrets behind the open book. They know the bindings and the glue the book was made of, hidden underneath. Also, I know them. It is not exactly safe though having people know you. Sometimes they know you and still do not necessarily understand you. They can hurt you more deeply with this knowledge than anyone else could. But still they are people that belong to us. We have a claim over them, and they have claim over us. It is wonderful belonging to people, but at the same time it is horrible. We want to make them happy and we tie ourselves up with them so there is no disentanglement. But as a part of them we are happier and make them happier. No one, besides sociopaths, can exist alone in the world. So, I guess no man is an island, except for people like the Unabomber, who I’m glad is an island.

Martha

I went to the Christmas Devotional on Sunday with my sister. I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to go. I actually wanted to sleep more, but we went. She loves Christmas and everything about Christmas. She loves the decorations, the traditions and the movies. I am not a Scrooge, but I am not nearly as excited about any Holiday as she is. I like the time to relax and be with people, but I never really got as much enjoyment over celebrating Christmas as she did. I probably would have skipped having a tree in the apartment we share, but I don’t think that ever occurred to her. She wouldn’t even let me put up a small fake tree I had. Last week she told me that we had to find a good time to go get a tree. She wouldn’t let me get out of it either. She insisted we go together to get a tree. I think I don’t like celebrating Christmas nearly as much because I am lazier than she is. Or maybe it is because we have different priorities. She values beauty and comfort over things like homework. I am much more obsessive about homework than she is. I like to get things done and accomplish assignments. I usually read books from my reading list for classes before the semester begins. On the other hand, she prepares perfect recipes. She will experiment with baking and spices until she has something perfect. She tastes these small tastes that I often cannot even detect. She likes things to be nicely decorated to her aesthetic taste. I eat food from vending machines and am content with a couch and a computer. I may get better grades, but I’m pretty sure she enjoys life more. People look at us as sisters and think we are almost exactly alike, and the truth is we are very close to opposites. We look similar, talk similarly, tell stories the same way, have a similar sense of humor, but we are very different people. I have more characteristics in common with each of my parents than I have with my sister. But I also get along with her best out of the whole family. We are only nineteen months apart and we are best friends. I was thinking on Sunday as we were going farther and farther the Sacrament meeting time that I am often very similar to Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus. I am very good at doing things, but I don’t really take time to appreciate the beauty of things. My sister I think is much more like Mary. She loves taking time to appreciate the beauty of life. I wouldn’t have gone to Salt Lake but instead have gone to sleep without her urging me. I would have left the apartment like it was without decorations. I suppose I need to slow down and think about what is more important in life.

Where am I?

No light but up as we stare at the starry blue blue sky
And wonder why we haven’t a care why
Controlling fears still tears fill ears with lies
But for us it is hard to hear over the buzzing of the flies
Only the drably neglected even try
For we live with the wettest leaves that make a sidewalk soft
Wispy wind and rain that we shake and quake aloft
The call of unnameable colors and kindly quiet
But blare the busy frogs in the half light
Shouting ever echoed jumping to the stars
Swearing my allegiance to bright reddish Mars
Song the silence, light, then darkness drips
In piled-up purplish patches of puddles
To jump in and sit until drying they go
Away where all the lilacs jump and scream
Telling the darkest secrets of the world and
All manner of undisclosed dreams
Moving mountains cover careless truths
Daisies dance to the Muses' wild wind
Dancing barefoot on mountains I commune
Earth warm and coolly moist makes my feet
Tingle with the turfy secrets underneath
Or left my hair wallowing without a hope
a care a prayer as breeze whispers in my ears
Grass slowly going speaks of something knowing
Reaching to the diamond heaven's sea

That is where I find my soul
Wandering within and without
Stealing stealthily siren to my senses
Again tonight too late I will not wait

Nature

How many times are we still? How often do we appreciate the small things? I was falling asleep standing up last night and I was trying to keep active so I would stay awake. I needed to be constantly active. I am often like that even when I am not in danger of falling down from exhaustion. I need to be constantly doing something or thinking about something. Zen Buddhism emphasizes staying still and trying to sense the world around us. As college students we put more trust in multi-tasking. We have so little time that is not going to be used in studying or sleeping that there is no time left for stillness. And often when I do have time to just be still without falling asleep, I feel it is wasted time. Yesterday I was walking from campus to my car. The sky was beautiful with a deep, deep cerulean sky and white clouds reflecting gold sun all over the sky. The mountains behind were lit and I was able to see all the rough ground and shrubbery on the mountains. It was the kind of beauty I have never been able to capture fully on film. If I take a picture it always seems to be a pale reflection of what I have seen. I have tried to manipulate the saturation and color levels. I have also made it a high dpi with digital or used a telescopic lens, but nothing ever really helps. I have so little time to really enjoy the beauty and majesty of nature except for walking to campus from where I parked and driving home from work in the morning. It really makes me wonder about the values we have been taught by our society. We learn that we need to work hard to succeed with the result that people are working as hard as they can. Seldom do we have time that we take to just ponder. Even when I am reading my scriptures I seldom leave time to think about what I am reading. Praying for me has become hurried as I have less and less time. I begin to wonder what I am planning after college. Will I be working as hard as I am now and will I ever have the time I want to enjoy the world around me. The last time I went camping I was 14 years old. By the end of high school I was skipping camping and other family trips to work or do school work. This Thanksgiving I worked and I caught up on school work. I just wish that I could go and spend time outside or go hiking. Maybe I will have time this Christmas break before I start getting ahead of my reading for next semester. In this busy world I keep putting simple things aside in order to 'get things done.' I wonder what I will remember more as I get older: what I got done or what I really experienced. Experiences take time and are not always necessary except for our souls and the development of keener insight and understanding.
This world is a creation and is full of beauty. I feel very ungrateful because I don't take the time to appreciate it more fully. The world is alive and as much a part of the creation and the plan of happiness as we are.

Directing

I am directing a short play for a theatre class. I have stage managed, run shows, and been an assistant director, but I have never actually directed a play. The responsibility doesn’t scare me and the fact that we are being graded doesn’t bother me. What is bothering me the most is putting my trust in the actors that are performing. We are performing on Friday and while they are coming along well in rehearsal, I am worried. They all have a tendency to laugh when kissing (yes there is kissing in the play). But we have a preview tomorrow for the TA and then one more rehearsal I will be at before Friday’s performance. Of course this week I also have a final dress rehearsal for the play I am acting in which opens on Friday at Provo Theatre Company. I’m only acting in that so I’m not nearly as worried. I am not the best at trusting people. In High School I would take over and do almost everything in any group projects I was involved in when I did not trust the other people in the group. I didn’t trust many of my classmates in High School. My group projects at BYU have been better since I trust the people more; but I still volunteered to be director of this play. I felt I had the most experience. But now in this project I am going to be giving all the control of it over to the actors. Before yesterday night’s rehearsal, this fact was scaring me. The rehearsal went well, but we didn’t have one of our actresses. I am stressing out just a little. I’m sure they will do the best they can. I hope they don’t screw up. But in the end I will have no control over what they do onstage. The performance is in their hands. I have never put something as important as a final grade in the hands of other people before.

This whole situation reminds me of the fact that Heavenly Father trusts us. I suppose our parents feel similar trepidation at watching their children move away and knowing that they will be nowhere near them if they need help. But Heavenly Father has put the power of agency in our hands. Even more than just agency he has given us the Gospel and with it the power to know where we are and what we are supposed to be doing. He knows that we will screw up, but he still trusts us to figure out what we should be doing. And he has given us the power to right our mistakes through the Atonement. He has put us down here on this vast stage with an outline of a plot and it is up to us to perform our lives. We have help, but in the end everything that really matters to us is in our hands. He helps us with direction, but it is up to us to follow that direction. It is up to each of us to earn that final grade.

I’ve told the actors everything they should do. I’ve told them to memorize lines and cues, project, and pick up the pace. I’ve told them where to go and which ways to turn, but as I watch them slowly improve, they are making each of the characters and the entire play uniquely their own. This would not be the same play without them. This wouldn’t be the same play without any one of the people involved. It is no longer just a play it is our performance. And tomorrow they will perform in front of our TA. I hope they don’t laugh and completely mess up the wonderful performance I’ve seen. I hope the same thing when they perform in front of 100+ people on Friday. But other than hope, pray and remind them again of everything they need to remember before they go on, there is nothing more I can do.

Sleep Deprivation

I was thinking about sleep deprivation over the holiday. Yes, I was thinking about the deprivation I will experience next week as I was catching up for the past few weeks. In the world today it is harder and harder to treat our bodies like temples when we are expected to stretch them to the utmost of their capacity. We are supposed to be studying, reading, working, volunteering and somehow also finding time to take care of our bodies. I have been neglecting caring for my body lately because it does not come at the top of my priority list. But where should caring for our bodies come on our priority list? It can’t come before studying scriptures or praying. I don’t think it should come before school work either. The only other thing I have that fills my schedule is theatre, which is something I am very passionate about. Should taking care of my body come before my passion? Probably, but I still sacrifice sleep as I near an opening night this Friday. And I will be sacrificing more sleep next semester when I stage manage Pirates of Penzance. Of course most of this sleep deprivation is made possible through my job at night. It provides a great time to do homework and reading for classes, but it makes sleeping more than 4 hours at a time a challenge. I have allowed myself to put my passion before sleep. I know I can only do this for so long before my body loses some of its youth and demands more sleep. I suppose I won’t give up theatre because I’m worried I won’t have it for very long. Most married people I know don’t have the time that they had when they were single to commit to theatre. So if I ever get married, I’m worried about giving up something I feel so passionately about. I know of a couple that met in a theatre and continues to be heavily involved in theatre, but that is one couple out of many. I remember the wife having morning sickness and almost being late to dress rehearsals.

We are supposed to find joy in life but at the same time we are supposed to live in moderation. Moderation between what makes me happy and what I know is good for me is a hard choice. I think it is most important that I still pray about my choices and do listen to guidance on my decisions. I haven’t been told to not do theatre, but if I am ever told that I know I will listen. I may sulk but when Heavenly Father tells me what to do, I usually listen. Our bodies are important but our spirits are equally important. The spirit affects the body and without happiness and passion I do not find the same joy in life. I know what truly brings me happiness is the Gospel and the scriptures. At the same time I know what I am passionate about and while it may only give happiness for a short time, it is something I am talented in and something I will try to use for the benefit of people around me. I suppose that is the most I can hope for anything I do.

Black Friday

I was driving home from work yesterday morning, Black Friday, and I saw this old man walking. He had a heavy coat and plastic bag. He may have been poor or homeless or just someone walking around at 7 am the day after Thanksgiving. I had been watching guests at the hotel where I work getting up early since 3 am to go shop. They will be standing in lines and braving large angry crowds to buy merchandise at rock bottom prices. It makes me wonder what the Millennium will really be like when there will be no rich or poor. How different it will be when we will all have what we need and no more. I have so much right now that I really don't need. Christmas is coming and we all seem to have wish lists. We don't really need most of the things we want. There is a book I love which has photos of families from all over the world outside of their homes with all of their belongings. The families in Ethiopia and Mali had so little. The house in Mali was made of dried mud. The family in Ethiopia had a two room mud house. These people represented the average income for people in their countries.

Life changes. The housing crisis has now spread and has become an economic crisis. Life is much less stable than it was a year ago or even six months ago. We are still far above most of the countries in the world, but we are not headed in a good direction. But if we are to have no rich or poor among us, then we will have much less than we have now. I myself have to become used to having less. Maybe not having a car and less clothes. I think the worst thing for me will be fewer books, dvds and no cable. We didn't have cable when I was growing up. We didn't get a dish until I was seventeen, so when I got my own job and my own place to live, we had cable. I did grow up with thousands of books. The first nursery was in a small apartment of my parents and one wall of it was covered in stacked colorful books and they somehow squeezed a crib in there. I keep thinking how hard it would be to sacrifice my books. But then I think of that old man I saw walking home. Are my books more important than food for other people or heat? No. If I miss them, I'll just have to write others. I can make up enough stories in my head to entertain myself, so I could always write them down.

Thanksgiving

My family is slowly moving to China. My father has been there less than a week. He finally got a call through last night from the international phone card information I emailed him on Tuesday. Of course he called at 1:30 am when I am at work since I work nights. But it was good to know he is surviving the culture shock so far. My father is not one of those über-social people but when he is stranded in a culture full of people he cannot understand and who do not understand him, he needs to talk to his family much more than usual. We had a very long email from him Tuesday morning (Hong Kong time which was late Monday night here), which told us everything he had done so far and told us he was unable to call us from his cell phone. We are a family you have to read between the lines to understand. I emailed him back soon to let him know I would buy an international phone card tomorrow and email him the details. He missed us and speaking to people in English since he doesn’t know Chinese. It reminded me of how lonely we can sometimes feel in this big world. What would we do without families?

I have two brothers who grew up for a long time in an orphanage after their father died. Watching them try to be normal is almost frightening to see how much influence having a family can have. They did have a family but it was very dysfunctional and then they were in an orphanage for a few years and these experiences have disrupted their lives so much that they will never be normal. The eldest of my brothers has finally spoken to my father again after not speaking to either of my parents for three or four years. He didn’t call my father when he had been shot in Iraq and was transferred to a hospital in Germany. The hurt these two boys have experienced is incredible. They don’t even want an emotional connection with people because of the possible pain it could cause. They don’t trust people.

On the other hand misery loves company and my brothers have hurt my mother in a way I didn’t think was possible. The most loving, kind and forgiving parent, she has not been able to forgive my brothers. My sister has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder from things she has witnessed from my brothers. My mother is also not able to forgive herself. She sees herself as partially to blame for not observing more closely what was happening and allowing them as much leeway as she did. So, despite giving us a foundation and a place of belonging in the world, families are also those who can hurt us most.

The holiday season has begun and families gather. My family will not be gathering this year. We have not been entirely together for many years and with my father in China we will not even have both parents together this season. I have been telling some pretty sorry stories about my family, but the truth is that despite their problems and separation, my family will always by very important to me. How important I don’t realize until I see my brothers trying to cope with a world they cannot entirely deal with. The family is divinely instituted and my family, as crazy and as messed up as they are will be together after we die. We have been sealed together and will be together forever. I’m not sure how that will work, but I’m hoping divine help will be given. I have faith and hope that Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he told my parents to adopt my brothers and we will be able to see the importance one day as well. Until then I am just grateful that some of my family supports me and are faithful members of the church. I am also grateful that living with such a challenging family has made me much stronger than I ever wanted to be.

gaze

Bereft of looks
Mirrored gaze
I thought it meaning
Something more than
Melon colored mornings
and musky chocolate dusk
Into eyes staring deep
deeper than eyes bore
Drilling under skin to heart
To find the soul misplaced
out of body, gaze set free
Taking to the air
Flying far from here
to youthful leafy trees
swaying hammock
Sailing in pure breeze
Now lost to age's looters
pure joy no longer a friend
now enamored of passing fancy
Passing preferred
No lingering, no staid
permanence, but a flight
breathless over my body
looking up again, eyes still
stare, but then away
as mirrored eyes finish
.And return I to flesh
farther from which I went
Knowing nothing more than
the dream my soul sees in
eyes
looking.
Aching for permanence.

Finger Bowls

I remember one time in the Minneapolis Museum of Art I was looking at one of Monet's Haystacks. I love impressionists and just looking at the paint strokes, oil paint so thick it was probably still drying, made me tear up a bit. Just seeing that beauty and realism captured in paint moves me in a very strange way. Religious art has never touched me as much as impressionists. We are told to seek after everything lovely. Monet is beautiful to me. Of course Kandinsky is too beautiful to me too, but not in the same moving and tearing way that touches my soul. Going to the exhibit of religious artwork in the Museum of Art was nice but having studied art for a while in a non-religious institution I am influenced too much by historical contexts and painting styles. I thought one of the pieces of art was very reminiscent of paintings of Arthurian legends from the same time period. The piece of art in the entire exhibit that moved me the most was the painting of the three bowls containing blood, water and spirit entitled The Third Triptych. These bowls at once reminded me of finger bowls we used in my family for hand washing at various Jewish celebrations. They were passed around the table for ritual hand washings. My parents had to explain the symbolism of cleansing ourselves before God. Like every child, symbolism had to be learned. My mother explained Catholic beliefs and symbols and my father took Jewish. The hand washing always seemed a little excessive to me as a child, but when we occasionally skipped it after I was older and we had many more kids and less time, I felt that something was missing. We may be taught symbols, but growing up we have our own symbols we have gained from learning and our families. I was taught different symbols from people who were born and raised only Mormon, but Mormons are taught different symbols from other religions. This painting did not make me cry over the technical details such as Monet did. This painting moved me because of the symbolism and how I connected with those symbols. One of the paintings had a prayer shawl hanging in the background. It also had lilies and other symbols, but I connected with the prayer shawl. Prayer shawls means sabbath to me and going to synagogue on some holiday or something.

Anyway, back to the painting I really liked. The water, blood and spirit all portrayed as being in finger bowls, which we use to cleanse ourselves and bring ourselves nearer to God, was simple in a way but very meaningful. In the New Testament times, they did not wash as frequently as we do, so hand washing was probably much more needed. Foot washing was probably the same. Peter asked when Jesus was cleaning his feet if he could clean every part of him, but Jesus replied that only the feet were needed. Now we still symbolically wash our hands, but because of our knowledge of Christ, washing our hands in the finger bowls has changed to not just being a symbol of cleansing ourselves so we can be nearer to God, but also symbolizes the Atonement and how Christ cleansed us all. The symbol of washing our hands is the same, but the meaning behind it has expanded to encompass more that it used to. So now the body of Christ is displayed in the three bowls, the same type of bowls we use to symbolize the cleansing power of the Atonement. His body cleansed us and saved us from sin.

Trials

Trials are never fun. My sister's car died this morning and is too expensive to fix. My car needed 500 dollars worth of work to keep it running last week. My sister is flying to Minnesota to drive a car of my parents back this weekend. My family is moving to China. I am broke. My car, even with the 500 dollars I spent on it may not last very long. My grades are not the best because I am working a full time job at night. My hair is messy today but I think I may want to go to an audition. Yes, another audition. I know I'm crazy. Life is crazy and I occasionally feel more at home with the craziness of life than the structured, normal times. But when the trials are really bad, after the initial breakdown, all I can think is that God must love me a lot to make me suffer this much. I know Jesus loves me because my life totally sucks. It's strange logic, but to the masochistic half-Jew, it completely makes sense. If I was having a good life, I would start to wonder about my decisions and if they were really in line with God's will. Maybe because I'm so busy dealing with the latest crisis or bit of bad news, I'm not worrying about my standing with God. My thought is: would he be giving me this many trials if he didn't know I could handle them with His help? Probably not? If I wasn't at least sort-of on the right path, I'd be punishing myself with unhappiness, so I'm going to be happy about the trials. My mother would always say: no one's dead, no one's in prison, so we're okay. Of course sometimes when she would say that Uncle Scott was still in prison, but I think she was just referring to the immediate family. Of course there was that time that Dad was in prison, but she wasn't in town for that.

Anyway, the point of this entire diatribe on trials is that in reading the account of John, I am reminded that Jesus knew what trials were coming and he still continued to help others and fulfill His mission. I suppose I shouldn't be amazed by this, but he knew what trials were coming. Greater trials than any other man had had to endure, and he was still helping other people through their trials. He was comforting his disciples after enduring in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was looking out for his mother when he was on the cross. He was forgiving people while he was suffering more than any mortal man could endure. How was he so good? He was the Son of God, and a God himself. He was at one with the father's will. How could we possibly be like him? I don't even know where to begin. But reading the Gospel of John, my favorite gospel, he is showing us in every word how to be more like Him. Examples are given, but more important to me are the words, the commands he gives. He is the light and life of the world. He is our example and has given us the light of the everlasting gospel to be our guide. We have to keep trying everyday. We have to keep trying, not only because He wants us to and has commanded us to, but because we really can't make it through trials on our own without that Spirit that comes from keeping his words and regarding them as our salvation. We have to keep going no matter what because it will never be so bad that we can't go on without his help. We are all stronger than each of us realizes. We are strong as keepers of the commandments and we are strong as those who can have the Spirit to be with them. And we have to keep going on, because the world is only going to become harder to endure, not easier. And to look at the highlights today no one is dead and no one is in jail. And more importantly I know that trials is one way I can become closer to my Savior; to become more like He is and wants me to be.

coming home

rummaging the children to get to the door
cement turns to fake grass covered stairs
iron bars follow me up and criss cross the
communal hallway houses the cold air and tonka
trucks lay with other fallen spoils of war
damaged and un lying desolate and abandoned
next door smells the seasoned beef simmering with oil
swelling the chill air with spices and then the
welcome mat lies looking always blankly up
unlocked the warm dark room awaits stilly wrapping
in the gentle deep exhalation and warm pins
prick my soul with peace
until the windows awake showing the black
and yellow noise all slipping around me and
lifting off the layers
until I am warm and naked

A personal God

Maybe it was all the Jewish holidays this last month or the struggles I have been having surviving day to day sometimes, but it occurred to me what a very personal God we have. I suppose many Christians believe in a God who is close to them, but not all do. My mother, while during Catholic school was never taught to pray personally. My father, raised without much religion most of his life, when he was studying to be a rabbi, would go up into the mountains to pray in true Biblical fashion. But we are taught to pray over everything. We pray over our 'flocks and fields' or anything that is important to us in our lives. We pray before sports events and theatrical performances. Coming from a place where prayer is considered to be something that you do in church or in a way that doesn't call attention to itself, this is still shocking. This praying over everything is still shocking to me even though I've been here three months.

The praying before plays was the first thing that really shocked me. My experience of theatres has shown me an environment very dissimilar to any religious environment. The theatre and church have always been very separate communities I belonged to. So praying in a theatre was about as shocked as I have been in many years. I have felt the Spirit while involved with theatrical productions, but I am usually alone in these feelings. The prayer before plays may seem normal to some, but to me it seems like a fissure in reality. So I always knew God cared about these very small things that I did, but seeing other people acknowledge these small things that God blesses us with was nice and interesting. It's just like the way God blesses us with personal prayer. I wonder how many times my dad would climb those mountains in California to pray? Was it everyday, or was praying only for particular guidance in a large and weighty matter? And I wonder if my mother said her own prayers to God as she chanted the set prayers.

Prayer is something very small, mundane almost. Except it is communicating with God. This was all inspired by rereading the account of Jesus taking on our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. He called to his Father, and our Father. In the times of greatest distress he called out to his Father, as we all have called out to Him in our times of distress. And even times when we just needed to be clear on some things or talk about some things. He is actually listening to all the small things we say to him and watching all the small things we do everyday. He knows us and not a hair on our heads will be lost (or pulled out) except he knows it.

To my sister on her birthday

You are my paper lunch bag and my Toblerone
Honeysuckle afternoon, losing all my keys
Fire escape rust and blood Hibiscus flower grown
Walks in the cemetery, most allergic breeze
Napping with Winnie Pooh, and Piglet all alone
Finest film I’ve known with my favorite French cheese
My red ants in New Orleans and a dirndl frill
Waiting for late late ride, boxes packed to fill
Moo sounding cello and Nutcracker dance
Three flights up to front door. Three more: not a chance.
The big zoo in my dreams and all the Russian things
Our cone of silence, mocking bird, and all Ping's dings
Umweltverschmutzung, and funerals, except one
But together and apart, this life's sadness will be won
Lonely as a lightning bolt, one second then no more
Back to the home before the jolt, from its haven torn
But echoing we speak and never loose track, nor
The calls, texts and emails from the darkness scorn


So with your lunch and life, you are the outcome new
Of all your dreams and plans and schemes, to which you have been true
No more or less than missing memories
All falling silently, your birthday leaves

Rosh Hashanah

Happy Rosh Hashanah! Okay, I guess it brings back my childhood, but I always loved the Jewish holidays, including the solemn ones around the Days of Awe. Maybe it was my Dad trying to blow the shofar he bought and totally failing. You just can't be solemn at that type of occasion. He tried so hard and there was never any noise at all. We all tried and no one could make a single note that sounded like the Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments when they blew their giant shofars to move the Children of Israel. They sounded like majestic horns trying to move the millions of people like cattle. Anyway, that was always a fun part along with braiding the challah bread and being allowed to eat lots of bread and honey. So, now my sister to baking the challah bread and I'm going to eat some tomorrow. I'm glad she's here to bake, or else I'd have to go to Einstein Brother's which I've been informed has individual challah, but they aren't that good. Tradition! Tradition! It seems like traditions carry on because they make us feel safe and secure. The Jews in the time between the Old and New Testaments were scattered and the temple was destroyed, but they still held onto what they believed through traditions. They didn't have the gift of the Holy Ghost per se, but they knew what their ancestors had believed and they knew the words of the Torah, and with their traditions, they survived as a people through many subsequent problems and diasporas. The Jewish laws may have been geared more to the letter of the law versus the spirit, but they did indeed keep the Jewish people separate from whatever people they tried to live among.

I guess hearing about all the laws they had back then regarding the number of steps around Jerusalem being as many steps as you could walk in a Sabbath day or how nothing that has touched milk can touch anything with meat, or vice versa seem like little things that shouldn't have made much of a difference to a people trying to survive. But all these little things became little things that made the Jews different, or special. I am not kosher and I don't adhere to any rabbinical laws regarding my actions on Saturdays or Sundays, but I do remember the holidays. Sometimes I just remember them in passing with fond memories of the past, and sometimes I search through the 7 grocery stores in town to try to find who sells Manischewitz macaroons for Passover (last Passover, and only one store sold any but chocolate chip which I don't like that much). I'm not Jewish, except in that my father was and I grew up celebrating Jewish holidays, but a part of me will always be Jewish because I remember these holidays and remember what they are in commemoration of. Why do I love these traditions that have no strict religious meaning to me anymore? Because I grew up with them, and even though they may have no strict religious meaning, they mean something to me. They remind me of my ancestors and the traditions they had to keep themselves a separate, obedient people.

This of course begs the question: What am I doing to keep myself an obedient person? Eating challah bread and macaroons definitely does not make me a more obedient person. All these outward celebrations and laws are not what makes a person obedient. What makes a person obedient is a change of heart and to internalize the gospel as much as possible. Feast upon the words of Christ, for behold the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do. I suppose that more than food and celebrations, we should be feasting on the words of Christ. But as much as I love the scriptures, I still like lighting Chanukah candles, winning Gelt, and playing 'find the matzo' (which has no purpose).

Entitlement

Yes, I am better than you
And should be treated like it too
Don't think to class me with the common
I am as lofty as any Brahmin
Gourmet lobster tortellini, not ramen
And if I'm not given everything I'm due
I will sue.

Illness

I've been thinking about illness and healing in the New Testament quite a bit lately. It's probably because I've been ill and reading the New Testament. Healing is something that the disciples and Jesus do throughout the New Testament, but others can also heal in the name of Christ. Then when Christ heals he will in conjunction with this sometimes cast out devils, sometimes forgive sins, and sometimes neither, he just heals them.

Mental illnesses seem to be the ones that need devils cast out of the people who are sick with them, while just healing, or forgiving sins seems to be for physical illnesses. I was just thinking about how many mental illnesses are still influenced by evil spirits today. We have a few people in my family, including myself with mental illnesses including depression, PTSD and bi-polar, and while they may be influenced by evil spirits, most of the time, those that are sick are being influenced by their brain-chemistry, their past or other things that may have happened to them. I suppose their experiences or condition have made them weaker, and that is how the evil spirits began to influence them. This is all conjecture really though. Even with priesthood blessings and faith, it still takes those who are sick a long time to heal, if they ever completely heal. Sometimes the real gift they are given is the ability to be strong enough to live with the disease. Then those who do not have faith don't ever really recover. They find ways to live. They try to forget the things that made them this way. They try to forget their problems. They find ways to try to find happiness in life.

I was just really thinking about the difference between mental and physical illnesses and how Christ could heal them all, but in different ways. Then I suppose he heals everyone of us in different ways. His ways are not our ways and healing mental illnesses is more of a process these days, even with the diivine help of the Lord. But learning to perfect ourselves and be more like Jesus is also a process. We all seem to learn and heal and grow line upon line, precept on precept.

I am very glad the Lord healed on the Sabbath. Being sick on the Sabbath is not fun, and I'm very glad blessings and other ministrations are welcomed and encouraged on the Sabbath.

Wilt

Evil all around
Chemical green grass I’ve found
Too green and too straight
To allow curving cusps create
Colors forced to perfection
No rot decay to allow reflection
Alternative banished

Burn Burn and fire turn
All dross into ways to learn
Grow and ash I know
Scorched and I regrow
No change, no fire, standing
Still waiting, fearful of expanding
Wilt

belong

I don't belong
Where my sorrow sings a song
My joy cries all day long
And mother says nothing is wrong
Wrong. I don't belong.

Where then is my home?
Am I a stranger lost?
Do I merely roam?
How far should space exhaust?

I'll never be fit for here
Inside me is lonely
But I fit so perfectly
I don't belong, but I'll be near.

How I feel

I do not hunger except for you
And the softest way you say: untrue
Me and everything I say and do
I am untrue to me and you

But if I am I know it well
And you know so I do not tell
Fissured cracked, a broken belle
Beauty fading, a death knell

You see the fear I hide
Bleeding pain always denied
Monster strong living inside
Eating me alive. I've died.

Partially and living is hard
Breathing by machine yard by yard
Perpetually scarring and scarred
Bleeding internally, exterior hard

But now your soft touch I crave
Your voice upon my earlobes lave
Peace given, when pain I gave
You tried but there's nothing left to save

I'll cause you pain I daresay
So, cause me more and go away
Or take pain out on me alway'
Love will my pain allay

P.S. This is just a poem about nothing. Don't read into it.