Let Us Spin Our Wheels Forward

President Russell M. Nelson, October 3, 2020, in a global address to the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

Dear sisters, we have so much to look forward to! The Lord placed you here now because He knew you had the capacity to negotiate the complexities of the latter part of these latter days. He knew you would grasp the granduer of His work and be eager to help bring it to pass.

I'm not saying that the days ahead will be easy. But I promise you that the future will be glorious for those who are prepared. Turbulent times are opportunities for us to thrive spiritually.

President Russell M. Nelson, October 4, 2020, in a global address to the world:

I feel that despite the world’s commotion, the Lord would have us “look forward [to the future] with joyful anticipation” (Joseph Smith, “History of the Church,” 4:609–10). Let us not spin our wheels in the memories of yesterday.

Photo of a mixed media Archer + Mom collaboration. We're very influenced by Eric Carle.

Hear Him

 

Those who are (or who will become) Saints reach breaking points without breaking.

-Neal A. Maxwell

I was introduced to Annie Poon with this giant pen and ink sketch hanging in the BYU Museum of Art. I loved its simplicity, its “doodle” feel. I loved her cursive. (I'm worried kids aren't learning cursive anymore!) I remember being at the exhibit strollering a young Everett around. Could he walk yet? Maybe we had just moved? That was a year of my life I don’t remember. This was Annie’s depiction of Joseph Smith after five grueling and unjust months in Liberty Jail.

As I read the tiny plaque next to Annie’s piece, it said the owl perched over the wilting prophet symbolized the Holy Ghost, because the Lord does not leave us alone in our trials. This was truth; I clutched it and felt sunnier. 

I have not stopped thinking about the merciful owl—the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost we are offered through baptism and obedience. Earlier this spring, the Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Russell M. Nelson, asked the collective members of the church to focus on how we “hear Him”, meaning how we hear the voice of the God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, in our daily lives. He expounded:

"We hear Him more clearly as we refine our ability to recognize the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. It has never been more imperative to know how the Spirit speaks to you than right now. In the Godhead, the Holy Ghost is the messenger. He will bring thoughts to your mind which the Father and Son want you to receive. He is the Comforter. He will bring a feeling of peace to your heart. He testifies of truth and will confirm what is true as you hear and read the word of the Lord.

"I renew my plea for you to do whatever it takes to increase your spiritual capacity to receive personal revelation.

"Doing so will help you know how to move ahead with your life, what to do during times of crisis, and how to discern and avoid the temptations and the deceptions of the adversary." 

I love that we all hear and feel the Holy Ghost differently; it is his role to speak to us "according to our own language", whatever that may be. Metaphors, music, art, nature, specific words, scripture phrases, mental pictures, and gut feelings that won't go away are some of mine.

I have studied the Holy Ghost in the manner that my brain works: magnetic poetry! Now, magnetic poetry holds a special place in my heart since every ghetto dwelling I paid rent for during my collegiate years had it (on a fridge filled with six gallons of lid-initialed milk, no less). Yes, I was poor, but I had call waiting and magnetic poetry and therefore endless entertainment.

President M. Russell Ballard said, “You cannot connect with heaven in a mass of clutter.” So I literally created clutter, sorted it, and was able to see my way to heaven. I collected words from holy writ, hymns, and the temple. I made light words for the ways the Holy Ghost speaks to and influences me and dark words for the ways the adversary tries; each endeavor to take place in my soul and cause reaction. Then I worked long and hard mixing, rearranging, and pairing things up. There are obvious opposites but plenty of nuanced synonyms:

 What I learned is how skilled Satan is. He attempts to mimic, block, or override every method of the Holy Ghost. For instance, the Holy Ghost delivers God's love, which is a pure love. The devil beguiles, which is a false, enchanting, deceptive love. Thankfully, the Holy Ghost is more powerful, more effective, always right, trustworthy, and the bearer of good fruits that won’t make me sick. 

Interestingly, the Holy Ghost only has two techniques that aren't warm and fuzzy: "prick" and "pierce". Having felt both, I know they are tiny, well-aimed pinpricks that go straight to the heart. The unmistakable awareness they cause is what feels pointy. They are meant to highlight, not kill.

One word that really stuck out to me for Satan’s tactics is “hollow”. Dallin H. Oaks said, “You can never get enough of what you don’t need, because what you don’t need will never satisfy you.” Subscribing to the adversary's methods will never give me the down-to-my-core peace I want so badly.

I have questions that need answers. I need guidance, assurance, and calm. I need directives to keep my family safe and help out of the messes I make. To hear what God is saying I need quiet time every day. This is why I love being alone, driving alone, and hiking alone. Prayer, scripture study, and pondering are essential to hearing the truth. I ask God for answers, carve out time to do the hard work, and pay attention to how I feel.

No matter how many times in my life I’ve been almost-broken and withering in the corner, I’ve felt God’s love beside me and inside me—through the Holy Ghost—despite the rats, darkness, and protruding ribs mortal experience demands. To quote an Ingrid Michaelson song: “Happy is the heart that still feels pain.” 

I love my word list because it assures me in absolute black and white that Heavenly Father speaks fluently to his children, and does so in marvelously kind—and straightforward—ways.

Please borrow my list! Use it to clear your anxious head! I didn't do all that work for nothing.

President Nelson's address here

Annie Poon’s website and Instagram. Image "Thou Art Not Yet as Job" used with permission. (She even emailed me a copy!)

Neal A. Maxwell quote from Deposition of a Disciple, p. 52.

Alpine Loop

It's officially fall and fall beats all. Here in Utah, anyways. And in Missouri. I'm not sure about fall in miserable places with coastlines aka tropical prisons with mangos instead of pumpkins and speedos instead of cardigans. No other season boasts a taste of everything—an annual sampler—for those who can't commit to just one flavor. Why, from my deck in fall I can see snow on Timp, punches of pomegranate in Alpine, swaths of yellow in the hollow, my own freshly cut grass not ready to give up the green ghost, and flamingo-pink dianthus blossoms swarming with bees.

FALL IS EXCESS. Gather the harvest and bring in the sheaves! Mason jars were created for fall. My favorite part of the Little House on the Prarie books was when the family prepared to hibernate by busting out the fall frontier to-do lists—burying root vegetables in the cellar, hanging onions and herbs up high, and Laura getting the roasted pig tail when they were finished. Fall also means not running the AC or the furnace, so even the checking account has a little extra tumbling out of its cornucopia.

FALL IS RESOURCEFUL. As nature's bounteous, but discounted, last lap, fall is simply summer on clearance. Stock up because when it’s gone, it’s gone for good. It is the seasonal cider press that squeezes every last drop of life, color, and flavor from what once thrived.

FALL IS INVIGORATING. My friend Dave and I have a little competition for who can feel fall first. I’m not sure how it started but we are generally trying to prove who relishes a cable knit hug or the nostalgia of microscope-burnt leaves the most. Last year he won with, “I knew it was here a week ago because, as usual, my productivity and mental acuity is off the charts.” Fall not only sprinkles a magical salt to get the creative juices flowing, it supplies the energy necessary to execute visions.

FALL IS EXHAUSTING. I’ve been running full speed ahead since spring’s first pea tendril uncoiled and summer evaporated faster than a poolside footprint. I want to yell “Timber!” and collapse horizontally but fall warns, “Faster! Winter’s a-comin’!” with demanding swirls of crisp air. I paint the exterior doors, roast squash, can applesauce, plant mums, and wash all the bedding before noon on Tuesday. Maybe I’ll rest when the pass closes.

FALL IS FATTENING. I stop swimming in chlorine and start swimming in cream. Don’t throw me a lifesaver until I’m bubbling on the edges and golden brown! Is there a healthy fall recipe? Maybe if I put dark chocolate chips in the pumpkin cookies?

FALL IS A DECRESCENDO. Sunflowers hunch and their hardened stalks are perforated by downy woodpeckers—the tiniest jackhammers around. It is darker earlier and the good Daylight Savings happens. I love me an extra hour.

FALL IS ITS OWN HALLMARK MOVIE. It is every good thing written into a sweet-as-a-caramel-apple, so-perfect-it-must-be-fake script. It stars cranberries, acorns, cinnamon, gourds, chestnuts, hayrides, festivals, and football.

FALL IS FAST. Part of me yearns to curl up in my leather reading chair—the one in the sunny corner by the open window screen—with a lightweight throw to catch a few winks but I fear I’d wake up like Rip Van Winkle and see snow.

FALL IS A LONG TRANSITION. Landing safely between Verdant and Dormant it manages migration, conversion, bundling, storage, and depletion, and then slowly, with faded copper keys, locks down the season for good.

I must be in the fall season of my life; the bipolar conundrum where I’m winding up and winding down in a single rotation of time’s crank. The days stretch long, like a piece of pulled taffy, and hardly last, like a just-lit wick being snuffed by a draft.

Joanne Ramos said, "I've begun to sense that, maybe, it's in the loops of life—it's deepening circles, and not the forward thrust of 'progress'—that fulfillment lies."

Year after year there is no loop I look more forward to living than fall. 

Photo quote by Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

“Fall is hot and cold at the same time.” -Archer, age 6

The Alpine Loop is a 20-mile scenic drive through rugged mountain canyons near my home. You enter at American Fork Canyon and exit at Provo Canyon but not before passing caves, rivers, camping sites with awesome names like "Salamander Flats", Sundance, and dueling evergreen and aspen groves. Stunning all year but serious heart-eyes bonkers gorgeousness kill me dead scenery in the fall. 

Disguised Missionaries

I was chopping green onions for the Smitten Kitchen veggie galette I’ve baked 20 times this summer. I had houseguests, kids pulling on me, music playing—it was anything but zen—yet I had the thought, “Poor little middle of the onion. Every recipe calls for ‘white and dark green parts only’. That’s gotta hurt to be consistently skipped over.”

Who doesn’t feel like the middle of the onion sometimes? Ever-present, offering your best, willing…chop chop goes the chef’s knife on the lucky dark green and white parts…and now unused, outdone, even discarded.

Right then and there I chopped up the whole dang onion—even the weird, forked, pale green section—and brushed it into the recipe with panache (and an odd sense of validation).

A cold snap hit Utah on Labor Day and my Tuesday morning walk was 41 degrees. Now, morning walks are completely for the purpose of organizing my brain and alleviating anxiety—my head spins nonstop—yet I heard myself say, “Aww, you look like you need a hoodie,” to the formerly beaming but currently wilted, and only, Indian blanket on the 3-mile loop.

Upon my return home, I did what any other warm-blooded creature with a heart would do—I dug through RE’s save box, found a Calico Critters shawl and lab coat, and dressed my petal-free trail cheerleaders the following morning at 6:42 beneath Smiling Moon and Venus.

It later occurred to me that if I could notice and care about, without prompt or intent, the invisible section of a green onion and the one depressed flower on the five trails I rotate through, it is unquestionably fathomable how Heavenly Father is aware of not just you and me, but the fallen sparrow, too. I have nothing invested in onions or sunset-petaled flower crowns. God, however, is infinitely invested in and loves his creations; children and otherwise.

There is no escape from it. Violets and grass preach it; rain and snow, winds and tides, every change, every cause, in nature, is nothing but a disguised missionary. -Emerson

The Indian blanket is also called a firewheel. Best name ever!

Galette recipe here.

What the World Needs Now

"Outwitted"

by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

I once read there is nothing that time or love can't heal. I think it's time for love.

I will have no greater impact toward the state of the world than the children I raise and set free to roam it. I want to teach them every good thing that I know. I want them to know about art and design, how to make a buttermilk biscuit, and how to properly lift weights. I want them to read from the best books, not glossy internet trash. I have so many things to teach them! However, if I do not foster and perpetuate the truth that we are all children of God—literally brothers and sisters—and must love each other because God loves each of us, I have failed my children. My daughter is an asset to humanity; she notices the invisible and radiates to all. My boys are little. They know no guile, much less hatred. Still, I ask, "What color of skin does Heavenly Father love the most?" Without hesitation, Archer answers, "All!"