30 years later....

I wrote a letter today.... it was about decisions.  It was about how a decision today can have powerful downstream implications tomorrow, or 30 years later.

30 years or so ago, I made a decision to participate in the Hill Cumorah Pageant when I was 18.  That experience awakened many spiritual feelings and emotions that reminded me of who I was and how I might direct my life.  It inspired me to make another decision to serve as a volunteer missionary for my Church.  For 2 years I dove into the culture and language of Portugal.  Mostly I embraced the people.  They found my heart and it has never let them go.

30 years later, I am having sweet emotional and spiritual conversations with those dear friends and acquaintances.  They were special then, they are gold now.

30 years later,  my son is accepted to be on the work crew for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  He is there as a missionary for 1 month. No cell phones, no phone calls home, only written word.   I wonder each day he is gone, "will he have a spiritual experience as I did?"  "Will he have similar spiritual springboard moments?"  "Will he crawl into "their" eyes as he shares his feelings about the gospel of Jesus Christ with the audience before each performance?"  "Will he be inspired and edified in a way that will leave him never the same again....forever?"

30 years later, he comes home and we receive him with great enthusiasm..... my wondering continues... how will I find out?  Will he tell?   30 minutes into the conversation he begins sharing all the miracle stories that occurred.  I look at him, very closely as he talks... he is different... I can tell.  Something has happened.  Something very quiet, something very deep, something very personal....yes, Heaven has touched him in a way that I understand.  He is wiser, and more mature, he has grown and is ready.... I can almost feel the spiritual battle armor he has been fitted with.... ready for what life has next for him.....   I feel the lump rise in my throat.  I am so grateful that this experience left its mark on him..... Yes, 30 years later, that simple "yes" to the invitation, "Want to go be in the Pageant?" has found a way to bring so much deeper meaning that I could ever have imagined.

30 years later, what will  Braden talk about with his kids?  I hope Hill Cumorah comes to mind as it did me... that the same Spirit he felt there will be right smack there when he needs it as he shares his stories with them... they will spark the imagination, they will be curious.... maybe they will go and he finds himself with the nervous anticipation of wondering if they too will experience what he did....

30 years later, I ponder other decisions I have made... They have all led to where I am right now, in this moment.  All of them have shaped me, they are like little letters I have written myself, helping me to move left, to move right, to stop, to pause, but mostly to fall forward with a perfect brightness of hope and faith.  I take them all, good, bad and ugly--they are all mine, I made them and they have defined me.  They are precious to me, they are my book of life.  I see the downstream implications of them now, reflected in the lives of my kids, just as I resemble the outcomes of my parents' decisions.

I can only imagine the stories your decisions could tell.... I can't wait to see what mine will tell..... 30 years later.

PS: if you want to see what Braden did click here:  Hill Cumorah Setup

Family

I am not sure exactly how it works....  This thing called 'family'.  I do not know the "why" of this particular configuration..... this particular mix, this particular combination and sequence.  

I do not know why Landon came first and I do not know why Alexa came last.... I do not know why boy, then girl, then boy, then girl again came in that order.   

One small degree of variation and this picture could possibly look quite different.  One degree.....one decision..... has made all the difference.

Is it all by chance?  Coincidence.... or nature's random throw of the DNA dice?

When I look at this picture....or any picture for that matter where there is a grouping of family, I simply cannot accept this as happenstance, accidental or the random sum of a cosmetological chemistry lab experiment.  I get that it would be nice to have evidence, more facts.... we like to know things sure.... but, nice for whom?  Us?  ha!  I think the real answers would fry our pea brains.  How could one gaze at and consider the whole sum of their family, consider the connections, bringing little people into this community, the learning and growth, yes, especially the love and not wonder that there could be some purpose, some other non-mathematical equation that puts this life puzzle together for us.  Why do we have to understand everything?  Don't questions keep us moving, thinking and searching?  What would be the fun in knowing all the answers anyway?

I believe the rabid chasing of non-spiritually oriented data, facts and logic to explain our existence is actually an excuse for the weak.  To think there are those that would rather feel content knowing that a cosmic collision of dust and gas out in space is where you came from?  Really.....?  They want that to be their "Mom" and "Dad?" ...... Ick!  They would go to their dusty and rocky grave with smiles on their faces and peace in their hearts that maybe someday they too can be some icy comet that collides with some other outer space debris to cause the next explosion and become an micro ameoba and start that glorious evolutionary cycle again... oh my, I think I am getting goosebumps!  How exciting!....  How meaningful!  This line of reckoning provides meaning in their lives??  

They want to kick the only thing that beautifully describes the possibility of where we came from, whow we are, what our purpose is and where we might be going next smack in the face.....meaning: Religion.  Men definitely get in the way of religion, for sure.... in every single flavor, but isn't it pretty amazing that most of us in this world choose to aspire to believe in something beyond and bigger than us, despite our frailties and weakness.  If religion was completely false, it wouldn't work for so many and for so long.  What if religion isn't the end.... but just the means?   What if it is really like the game of 'Clue'; designed to see if we can take the initiative and find stuff out... looking for heavenly clues placed around us in our lives, piecing things here and there to finally come to the right conclusions.   Flawed or not, I choose religion.  I choose higher purpose.  I choose to believe this union; family.... persists... forever.   Mostly because of love.  Love is the mystery.... love is the magic.....love is the majesty of our existence.  It is the glue in families.  It ultimately binds us to whatever is out there....  

You want to go play in a briny evolutionary soup?  ok... enjoy!  To each his own, thank goodness.

As for me.... when I look at this picture... I will let the tears of indescribable joy roll down my face, feel the burning of my heart and the lump in my throat 'foolishly' lead me to the 'vain' hope of being together forever, forever learning, forever progressing, forever loving.....   Yeah, what a stupid doped-up hogwash idea that is....  

You choose primordial soup.....I choose people with passion and purpose.  So leave me alone about it then......but then you probably can't... cause down deep you really do know, or secretly want to....because you can't possibly stand seeing me content without answers.    

Get over it... Families rule and the Godless drool.

Adronitis

n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—
Spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.

Have you had that experience of accidentally meeting someone....and then in just a few seconds feeling like you have known them for a long time? Maybe just wanting to have known them forever...? It is that feeling of instant connectedness that creates this urgency to know all about them immediately!  Adronitis captures this well.  The small talk seems.....unnecessary, unhelpful and just gets in the way, like sticky spider webs that slow down the speed of getting to the "good stuff."  It is in these moments that we seem to know immediately, that there will never be enough time to ever get to really know them.  The realization is heavy, like treading deep water and fighting to get to ground but it takes forever....

I remember having a burst of Adronitis when I was with a very good friend who I had met just a few months earlier.  We had gotten on well and as we started to talk about things I felt this urge to ask:

"What were you like 5 years ago??"  

I felt a very strong desire to know them right then and there, not knowing exactly why.  The response back was a bit of a defensive:  "Why do you want to know?"  Fair question.... I stumbled for a reply....  I remember trying to find the right words so I didn't seem so 'dumb'.....What finally came out was not what I expected, and was a revelation to me.   "Because I wan't to love you more."  This wasn't a romantic "love you" but rather the agape version, the type of just wanting to accept this person for who they were, and by somehow knowing them more deeply would enable me to appreciate them more, to let them know how awesome of a person I thought they were.... as if I could be some kind of a mirror, that they could see the reflection of who they really were.....to see everything I could see, which was amazing to me.

I won't forget that moment.... the response back was very special, emotional and touching.  It wouldn't have happened if not for Adronitis.  It made me want to cut through the "red tape" of the knowing process.   It doesn't have to happen every time.......It isn't for all, and not for every friend...this I know as well.  But for those special moments that make all the difference, it is one of the "hurts good" moments my Father taught me so well to cherish.

To my friend....  wherever you are... I still want to know more.  I have to wait.  I will treasure the small bits and pieces that have come my way... they are like gold, never to tarnish, never losing their luster.

.... a toast to Adronitis, may you continue to play your part in the meeting and knowing of one to another!  long live.....

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

I found beauty the other day in the last place I expected to find it—at the funeral of a good friend’s two-year-old daughter, who had drowned in their swimming pool.

I went there to mourn. To grieve. To support my friend and his family in whatever small way I could.

But somehow, they ended up consoling me.

They spoke almost entirely about the beauty of their little girl and how grateful they were for the opportunity to experience her—even if only for a few “eternal seconds” in this life.

Through their grief, they expressed gratitude that God had entrusted her to them and faith that they could now release her back into His care.

No…

I did not expect to find that kind of deep beauty that morning.

But there it was—not waiting to be captured or possessed, but waiting to be received by anyone willing to accept and embrace that searing kind of beauty that only God knows how to give—or make sense of.

There are those who seek after beauty as if it were something to “find” or “capture”—like a destination to be reached or a possession to be acquired.

To those who are constantly chasing it, beauty can become a perpetual, elusive leaf in the wind. It always seems to be within reach, but like a whisper of smoke, the moment we try to grasp it, it moves just ahead of us…

Forever beyond our reach.

Is it possible that beauty was never meant to be caught?

What if it is simply meant to be seen… experienced… received?

Why do we spend so much time searching for beauty when it is already within us?

When it is all around us?

Isn’t beauty defined, at least in part, by the way we choose to see the world? Could beauty be the lens through which we look?

You and I define it with every look, every blink of the eye, and every soulful stare connected to the heart.

Beauty is how our heart sees.

Perhaps that is why a perfectly mowed lawn can be strikingly beautiful to one person, while another sees beauty in the quiet, systematic routine of a mother caring for her children and holding a household together.

Neither is wrong.

Both are seeing.

I think beauty asks us to become quiet.

Its luster appears when we practice the right kind of intentional listening. Beauty is a bath you soak in. It is spiritual, and it becomes exquisite when combined with feeling.

Beauty is clarity of purpose.

It is simplicity at its essence.

It can be discovered in the smallest things, yet it can also overwhelm us in the vastness of a landscape or the serenity of an expansive sunset.

My personal favorites are the moments of beauty found between the mundane activities and ordinary tasks of daily life.

They do not happen because something was carefully planned or intentionally created. They appear because you were simply there…

Watching...

Listening...

Paying attention while doing the task in front of you.

“Beauty is its own excuse for being,” my dad once wrote to me.

I think I understand that a little better now.

Beauty does not always explain itself. It does not ask our permission before appearing. It does not promise to arrive only in comfortable places.

Sometimes it appears in joy.

Sometimes in birth.

Sometimes in music, nature, laughter, or the face of someone we love.

And sometimes, inexplicably, it appears in grief.

Kahlil Gibran wrote:

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,

But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Perhaps, in other words, we are not merely searching for beauty.

We are part of it.

Beauty lives in what we are willing to notice. It is reflected in how we see other people, how we receive the experiences God gives us, and how we choose to carry them forward.

Accept the gift.

Reflect it upon everyone and everything around you.

Then drink in what comes back.

There is something sacred about seeing the world that way.

And something remarkably freeing.