Still

When Mozart was composing at the end of the 1700s the city of Vienna was so quiet fire alarms could be given verbally by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan's Cathedral.

There is an alarm going off in my head telling me I need a little more 18th century Vienna in my life.

The noise, hustle, and bustle of Decembers gone by have found me bitterly whining to Greg on Christmas Eves that "We never watched White Christmas" or "We never made caramel bars" or "We never went to a live nativity." December's calendar is routinely blacked out by mid-November and by the time I am sitting in piles of torn wrapping paper on Christmas Day I realize the only traditions I've kept alive are stress, busyness, and aiming beyond the mark.

I needed a solution to our December problem. Then I remembered something my friend Brooke wrote about the Taos Indian Pueblo in Taos, New Mexico. Per tradition, at the end of every year the Indians close the pueblo to tourists and hold what they term "The Time of Being Still." This was my answer for our family this year.

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Glow

In his masterful essay "The Lantern Bearers," Robert Louis Stevenson tells of growing up on the rugged Scottish coast where he and other young boys played a peculiar game. They gathered at twilight with a small lantern fastened to their waist, completely obscured by a topcoat. The delight of the activity was in knowing that you carried, deep inside where no one could see, this small beam of light.

He writes, "The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night; the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned; not a ray escaping: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool's heart, to know you had a bull's-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge."

This is what has been glowing under my tightly buttoned trench coat for 11 weeks. I have been playing tag on a rocky slope next to craggy cliffs with the sea roaring below, aware of nothing other than the glowing bull's-eye inside of me that no one can see. I've had 11 weeks to treasure it all to myself, to think about it nearly nonstop, to hold it close.

Last year on Decemer 3 we found out our initial round of IVF didn't work. This year on December 3 we went to that same doctor's office, after doing a second round of IVF, and watched our baby thrash around on the big screen during its 10 week ultrasound. Oh, the difference a year can make. Time and love slowly heal all wounds. Sometimes there is even poetic justice with a new December 3 righting the wrong of an old December 3.

I can't believe this is finally happening.

*Excerpt from "Why Every Mom Needs a Purpose Beyond Motherhood" by Tiffany Gee Lewis

Tiny Matters

 

When we look at all the Lord asks of us

it can sometimes seem overwhelming.

I am certain the Lord is pleased even with our

small beginnings

because in his infinite wisdom

he knows that

small things often become great things.

-L. Tom Perry

Weeks ago I lamented to my dad there wasn't one oak leaf in Utah. (Unless you count scrub oaks, which I don't.) I desperately wanted an oak leaf for my blog because it is the natural counterpart to the miniscule and underestimated acorn.

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True Colors

"Rescued From Hell", stained glass, Gomm Studios (David and Jeanne Gomm), Provo, Utah.

My sister Cristall has this new acquisition hanging in her front window. I can't get enough of it. I even made it my phone's screensaver.

I've been the green man. Life got so tough that I fell down and woke up and everything was red. I don't know how I got there but I know I got there by accident. Looking back I vaguely remember being removed from the red. I guess when you're green it's hard to see turquoise. Then again, there were times I was completely coherent in red and quite aware of cooling, flapping turquoise saving me.

I have been the turquoise man. I have logged many miles with my wing harness tied tightly around my torso. (The harness looks more like a breastplate of righteousness than wings to those of us that collect armor.) It takes energy to find the green man and more energy to cradle and save him but when you're turquoise you only care about getting green out of red.

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Moccasins

Life has recently allowed me to walk in the moccasins of other men; to see what those I thought I knew are really going through. It revealed that under the fluff of monotonous and autonomous tasks we perform to get through life (packing lunches, brushing our teeth, driving, clocking in, clocking out, folding the same clothes we folded the week before) there are serious and very real burdens that all of us are carrying. Some carry them openly begging for aid, some carry them secretly hoping no one will know, some carry them half-concealed not sure what do to with the weight. There is a quote that floats around the internet that is sometimes attributed to Plato, other times to Ian MacLaren:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

To those carrying openly: I will help you.

To those carrying secretly: You will make it.

To the rest of us: Be nice to everyone. No one has it easy. If you only knew.

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we would find in each person's story enough suffering and sorrow there to disarm all hostilities." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow