Aflame with the glory of God

"We thank thee [O Lord] for our senses by which we can see the splendor of the morning and hear the jubilant songs of love, and smell the breath of the springtime. Grant us, we pray thee, a heart wide open to all this joy and beauty, and save our souls from being so steeped in car or so darkened by passion that we pass heedless and unseeing when even the thornbush by the wayside is aflame with the glory of God." --Walter A. Rauschenbusch 

all now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Just a thought which resonates with my soul:

"I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

--Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 in Letters to a Young Poet

the point is to live everything. 

live the questions now. 

be still. 

and know. 

For future reference

A dear friend sent this quote to me. I want to keep it somewhere I can refind and refer to it often:

"God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future--to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities.

"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe." --Jeffrey R. Holland "Terror, Triumph, and a Wedding Feast.

Summer Reading

Summer is coming to an end/is over, depending on how you decide when fall begins (for some, it's the moment the bell rings on the first day of school, for others, the day after Labor Day, for the sun it's the Equinox . . .).

In any event, I've been doing a lot of reading this summer. I have almost permanently had a book at my side as an extra appendage. In fact, it got to a point that my family members knew my summer better than I did--or at least were willing to answer the "what did you do this summer" question for me. One time a kind person asked that oh-so-harmless small talk question.

Kind Person (to me): What have you been doing this summer?

Me: Uhhhhhhhh.

My sister Sarah: She's been doing a lot of reading.

Kind Person: Oh.

And the conversation usually ends there. I think they're expecting me to say some extraordinary thing like, "Oh, I hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro," or "Oh, I rafted down the Amazon." (Honestly, people, I'm quite boring. Sorry to disappoint.)

But the thing is, I've been quite happy with my reading list this summer and crossing off some works I've been meaning to read and then re-reading some of my favorites.

And since I have this insatiable need to share people what I learned, here are some of my favorite quotes from my summer reading. (I could do a blog post about each book I read this summer, but I read about fifty, and that might get tiresome . . . also, a lot of the books I read were historiographies for Oxford preparations, and I read a couple of books on economics to prove a point, but I digress.)

[My Book o' Quotes.] 

"There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made." --My Antonia, by Willa Cather 

"Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." --My Antonia

"Sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom." --My Antonia

"Do you know, Antonia, since I've been away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world. I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me." --My Antonia 

"Dostoevsky said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.' These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom [the freedom to choose one's attitude] cannot be lost. It can be said they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful." --Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl

"We had to learn ourselves [. . .] that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. [. . .] Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." --Man's Search for Meaning

"Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations." --Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"I have always felt that ultimately along the way of life an individual must stand up and be counted and be willing to face the consequences whatever they are. And if he is filled with fear he cannot do it. My great prayer is always for God to save me from the paralysis of crippling fear, because I think when a person lives with the fears of the consequences for his personal life he can never do anything in terms of lifting the whole of humanity and solving many of the social problems which we confront in every age and every generation." --Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"Katie heard the story. 'It's come at last,' she thought, 'the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them--I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them.'" --A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

"So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?" --All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

"She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." --Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

"What does the brain matter compared to the heart?" --Mrs. Dalloway 

"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, how vivid, and cruel. One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own [. . .] was there anything so real as words?" --A Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

"Cynicism is nothing more than idealism gone sour." --That Ye May Believe, Neal A. Maxwell

"Even in the midst of deep and discouraging blackness we are to trust in the Lord in order to show that we are a 'friend of God' by being 'righteous in the dark.'" --That Ye May Believe 

"It takes intelligence and faith in order to make one's way through [the ambiguities of life]." --That Ye May Believe 

"Power comes from love. Achievement and ability come from love. We can try to do it on our own, or we can really achieve with the Savior--by accepting His love and being willing to love others in return." --Disciples, Cheiko Okazaki

"When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve." --A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially." --A Farewell to Arms 

"But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for awhile, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories." --The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

"Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story." --The Things They Carried 

"The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writing knowing guilt and sorrow. And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life." --The Things They Carried 

"Nabokov says that every great novel is a fairy tale. [. . .] But the magic comes from the power of good, that force which tells us we need to give in to the limitations and restrictions imposed on us by Fate." --Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi

"Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors, and infidelities of life." --Reading Lolita in Tehran 

"Learn to fight for your happiness." --Reading Lolita in Tehran 

"To have a whole life, one must have the possibility of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue between the public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared? [. . .] We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts, and feelings." --Reading Lolita in Tehran 

-If you were wondering, my top three books this summer were My Antonia, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reading Lolita in Tehran. I also loved anything I read by Neal A. Maxwell.-

just some thoughts.

"There is always something left to love. [. . .] Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well, then, you ain't through learning--because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he came through before he got to wherever he is." --A Raisin in the Sun 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I've been doing a lot of reading this summer.
Reading, writing, and thinking.
And although right now is not the time nor place to recap or analyze what all of this reading and writing,
pondering and thinking has done for me,
I think it is safe to say
that a lot of it has to do with love.
Real love.
The kind that heals and changes.
And I am learning
that just like a soft heart
can turn to stone
a stony heart
can become soft again.

Reality stings.
There's no doubt about that.
Life is hard.
It was meant to be.
However, even though life is hard and reality does sting,
I do hope that I never become
"so aware of 'reality' that I am unresponsive to the whisperings of heaven."

We have to want a softened heart.
But before that, we have to realize that we need it.
And then want it.
Because it's not easy to want it.
It is not easy for a stony heart
to become soft again.
It hurts.
It's painful.
Like that scene from Voyage of the Dawn Treader 
where Aslan peels off Eustace's dragon skin.
It hurts to become human again.
To allow yourself to feel again.
But those soft hearts
are much more prone
to "measure a person right"
and see things as they really are.

But it's hard
because so often we want to be right.
We want our opinions,
our comments,
our stereotypes,
our paradigms--
we want all of them to be right.
We want to be right.
The heroes.
The protagonists.
Or perhaps the victims.
Everyone else must be wrong.
Or at least not properly informed.

We are so resistant to change
when that change means changing ourselves.

But choosing to be an agent
free to act for herself
and realizing that I don't have all the answers--
nor am I right all the time--
is liberating.
Not that I am perfect at it.
And part of me knows that it will be something
I have to relearn again and again.
But I do believe this.
That being an agent to act
is so much better than being acted upon.

So yes.
This summer I have read.
And I have let it change me.
If just a little bit.
Because I am trying to apply.
It's always the application that is the trickiest.
"How is it done?"
And how do I get it from my head to my heart?
Measure him right, child. Measure him right. 

Account for the hills and valleys.
Including your own.
Because really.
We're all just children.
A long way from home.

Why I love Tolstoy class [part the second]

If you couldn't tell from the post below, I loved my Tolstoy class this semester.

But only part of it was because of the life-changing, soul-searching questions and themes Tolstoy brings up.

A big part of it was because three of my roommates and I were in the class together and that our brilliantly snarky professor loves us. [He calls us the "Fab Four." And we are not opposed to that at all.]

And, since he is a brilliantly snarky Russian literature professor, I collected a slew of quotes from him. There was something great and new every day. Here are some of the quotes from the semester:

P (on the first day of class): This is Eating Disorders 325 . . .

(Someone realizes they're in the wrong class and leaves)
P: I am so glad he's gone.

P: I don't see silence or shyness as a character flaw.

P: I think anger is a great motivator to get me out of bed. But it's kind of a junky energy--doesn't get me anywhere.

Student: It's like if you were given a great sum of money and you decided to hoard it, and you become, like-
P: Happy
S: Like Gollum.

P: We're never too far from our junior high selves.

Student: Maria got on my nerves . . .
P: Because she's a Christian?
S: Um, no . . .

P: I'm not saying pregnant women should be given a pass--but they pretty much should. Especially in Russia in 1805.

P: A lot of nice people are going to say a lot of nice things about you. Don't believe any of them.

P: Pierre emerges from a bastion of nerdery. And there's no room in this world for anyone like that.

P: The real men in Tolstoy know how to hunt. But they also are great dancers and ice skaters.

Student: Is it normal for 30-year-old men to propose to 18-year-old girls?
P: Yes.
S: Was or is?
P: Sure. I mean -- I sure hope not now.

P (about Natasha in War and Peace): Can't a girl have a little fun? It seems not.

P (about Maria in War and Peace): Would you prefer her to be Alma the Younger, intent on destroying the church of God?

P (about any number of characters in Tolstoy): Is this someone who is ready to enter the complex world of adult relationships? It appears not.

P (as someone's cell phone goes off in class): I like to see my life as run by some sort of soundtrack. So thank you for that.

P (about Helene in War and Peace): She's torn between two lovers . . . as we often are.

P (who is a grammar freak): Cover-up is what I saw in the Daily Universe today. "A government cover-up." Think of all the implications of what this means.

P: No, no, I love wasting time. It's the one thing I do well. That and waste your time.

P: I'm still waiting for the sequel to War and Peace: "War, What is it Good For?"

P (impersonating complaining student): "You don't understand, professor, I never get Cs."
Well, you just did. [eye roll] Weird.

P (about Kitty in Anna Karenina): Because when you are experiencing heartbreak, you go away--you go to Germany, because nothing bad ever happens in Germany.

P (about Tolstoy writing Anna Karenina): So, why did he write this. I mean, he could have taken out an ad in the newspaper: "Adultery is bad."

P: Let me tell you, as someone who does absolutely nothing except look extraordinarily beautiful, it's not easy.

P: "Hate ON her?" We can do better than this. We have devolved. 

P (just finding out that Greer had hurt her leg): You didn't play it up. I would have played it up.

P (to student): Just don't quote me anymore.

P (to student): No, no, it's all right. You're great. 

P (impersonating person in a modern art museum): "I could have done that."
Then I say, "Well, you didn't do it."
And then my wife tugs my arm.

P (talking about men saying that their wives are so much better/spiritual than them): That's what men say when they're in trouble. "Oh, my wife is just so much better than I am." Then you know they're atoning for something that week.

P: Buzzed driving is drunk driving. I heard it on the radio.

P: A new child? Great, another person to disappoint.

P (pleased with himself after returning from a trip to Arizona): Sunshine suits me.

P: It's a lot of dazzle. Like jazz hand dazzle.

P: I hope you're never my bishop one day.

P: You didn't know it was "bring a picture to share" day?

P (wearing a hideous sweater and wanting compliments to satisfy his pride): You like my sweater, don't you, Dillon?
D: Yes.
P: See, Emily?

P (being upset/annoyed that we all know the story of feeding the two wolves and he doesn't): All right, you guys know it, I don't. I don't want a wolf.
Clarissa: They're inside you.
P: Really, Clarissa, inside me? You can do better than that.

P (to me after Emily interrupts me): Does she do this a lot?
Greer: Only when we raise hands in our apartment.
P: Hurry, before she interrupts someone else.

P (to student): You just printed it out? Seconds before it's due? Poor you.

P (impersonating Tolstoy talking to historians): If you don't like it, go away. I'll give you a cookie.

P: We are only a step away from the kindergarten class that released us a few years ago.

P: Every once in awhile I'll get a student who comes into my class the day before class ends and asks me, "How can I do well in this course?"
"It's over."

P: You should write a paper on that. It's due Thursday.

P: Once I'm told, I want to defy it because I can.

P (about student evaluations): I used to get "You're a jerk" quite a lot. Last year I got: "You're such a jerk. So that's better.
And then two years I found out about Rate My Professor. Someone said on my evaluation: "Rate My Professor has a chili pepper for you. Some people are so delusional."
I bet Dr. Brown [another Russian professor--they are best friends] has 5 chili peppers.
I tell him sometimes, "Tony, I just want to punch your beautiful face." But he's just so genuine and kind. I can't do it.

P (on the last day/last seconds of class): What can I say? I adore you. Now leave! Be free! Be free!

Basically, I love this professor. And I love that he loves us. (Also, he knows a lot about the Fab Four since we did personal essays about the uncertainties in our lives for our final projects . . . so he knows more about our angst than anyone should.)

But he's got our backs. And it's nice to know that we can count on him to fight for us if we needed him to. He could pulverize anyone with his snark.

Why I love Tolstoy class [part 1]

This semester my favorite class was my Tolstoy class. I learned so much from that class and the books we read, especially War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I think everyone should read these books (believe me, you'll be a better person from reading them). But, since I know that you probably don't have time to read all of the books you have to read (not including the ones you want to read), indulge me as I include some of my favorite Tolstoyan themes/quotes which impacted me this semester.

-Learning how to deal with uncertainty. The protagonists of Tolstoy's works have to deal with uncertainty--in life, love, death . . . everything (just like us . . . weird). How the characters decide to deal with uncertainty (whether embracing it or avoiding it) says a lot about their ability to live a fulfilling life.

-Learning how to die. Another major Tolstoyan theme is embracing death--greeting it like an old friend. How a character dies says a lot about how they lived.

-Prosaic vs. Romantic love. This theme is especially in Anna Karenina. Sure, romantic love is nice and is important to relationships . . . but it shouldn't be what your relationship/marriage is built on. Because marriage isn't just about kisses and roses and perfume. It is about who's going to take out the trash and change the diapers and get the bills paid. We can't live in our fantasy worlds of romantic love. We have to go out and actually live. 

-Value of self-reflection. Something that progressing Tolstoy characters have is the ability to self-reflect and self-criticize. These characters are then able to develop wisdom and empathy.

-Forgiveness and divine love. Because we all need second chances. There really isn't a statute of limitations on how many second chances we should get/should give others . . . unless we have given up. But we should be genuinely striving. And we should let others genuinely strive/change, too.

-Learning how to live. Tolstoy recommends a life of joy with gratitude and sorrow without resentment.

Quotes:

From War and Peace

“Yes, a new kind of happiness was revealed to me, one of the inalienable rights of man,” he thought to himself. [. . .] “Happiness beyond materialism, beyond all external, material influences, happiness known only to the soul, the happiness of loving! It is within the conception of all men, but it can be fully determined and ordained by God alone. But how did God ordain this law? And what about His Son?" (1020) 

 "Yes, it’s love, but not the kind of love that loves for a reason, a purpose, a cause, but the kind of love I felt for the first time when I was on my deathbed and I saw my enemy and loved him. I experienced the feeling of love that is the essence of the soul, love that seeks no object. I can feel it now, that blessed feeling. To love your neighbor and your enemy. To love everything, to love God in all His manifestations. You can love someone dear to you with human love, but it takes divine love to love your enemy. [. . .] When you love with human love you can change from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can destroy it. It is the essence of the soul. How many people I have hated in the course of my life! And there’s nobody I have loved more and hated more than her.” 

And he found a clear mental image of Natasha, though not as he had seen her in the past, with all the charm that had given him such joy. For the first time, he caught an image of her soul. (War and Peace, 1020-1021)

“And out there beyond the forests and fields lay all the shimmering, beckoning distance of infinity. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the play of the stars receding into the depths. ‘And it’s all mine, and it’s all within me, and it all adds up to me!’ thought Pierre. ‘And they caught all that, shut it up in a shed, and boarded it in!’” (War and Peace, 1134)

“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything is in flux and movement, and this movement is God. And while there is life there is pleasure in being conscious of the Godhead. To love life is to love God. The hardest and most blessed thing is to love this life even in suffering, innocent suffering.” (War and Peace, 1184)

“No, nothing is certain, nothing but the nothingness of all that we can understand, and the splendor of something we can’t understand, but know to be infinitely important!” (War and Peace, 313)

“It was clear and frosty. A dark, starlit heaven looked down on the black roofs and the dirty, dusky streets. Only by looking up at the sky could Pierre distance himself from the disgusting squalor of all earthly things as compared with the heights to which his soul had now been taken.” (War and Peace, 663)

“And there in the middle, high about Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre’s eyes glittered with tears of rapture as he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre’s newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and blossomed into new life.” (War and Peace 663)

From Anna Karenina: 

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” (Epigraph)

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (1)

“This is the life! How good! This is how I’d like to live!”

“Who’s stopping you?” said Levin, smiling. (162)

“You can’t understand it. For you men, who are free and can choose, it’s always clear whom you love. But a young girl in a state of expectation, with that feminine, maidenly modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust—a girl may and does sometimes feel that she doesn’t know who she loves or what to say. [. . .] Her heart speaks, but consider: you men have your eye on a girl, you visit the house, you make friends, you watch, you wait to see if you’re going to find what you love, and then, once you’re convinced of your love, you propose.”

“Well, it’s not quite like that.”

“Never mind, you propose when your love has ripened or when the scale tips towards one of your two choices. But a girl isn’t asked. She’s expected to choose for herself, but she can’t choose and only answers yes or no.” (270)

“He looked at the sky, hoping to find there the shell he had admired, which had embodied for him the whole train of thoughts and feelings of the past night. There was no longer anything resembling a shell in the sky. There, in the inaccessible heights, a mysterious change had already been accomplished. No trace of the shell was left, but spread over half the sky was a smooth carpet of ever diminishing fleecy clouds. The sky had turned blue and radiant, and with the same tenderness, yet also with the same inaccessibility, it returned his questioning look.

“No,” he said to himself, “however good that life of simplicity and labor may be, I cannot go back to it. I love her.” (277-8)

“She could neither think nor desire anything outside her life with this man; but this new life had not begun yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was nothing but expectation—the fear and joy of the new and unknown. And now the expectation, and the unknowness, and remorse at the renouncing of her former life – all this was about to end, and the new was to begin. This new could not help being frightening; but, frightening or not, it had already been accomplished six weeks earlier in her soul; now was merely the sanctifying of what had long ago been performed’ (453)

“I’ll tell you,” Levin said, smiling, “In my heart I can’t find any feeling of regret for my freedom!” (444)

“Levin felt more and more that all his thoughts about marriage, all his dreams of how he would arrange his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood before, and now understood still less, though it was being accomplished over him; spasms were rising higher and higher in his breast, and disobedient tears were coming to his eyes” (454).

“He knew and felt only that what was being accomplished was similar to what had been accomplished a year ago in a hotel in a provincial capital, on the deathbed of his brother Nikolai. But that had been grief and this was joy. But that grief and this joy were equally outside all ordinary circumstances of life were like holes in this ordinary life, through which something higher showed. And just as painful, as tormenting in its coming, was what was now being accomplished; and just as inconceivably, in contemplating this higher thing, the soul rose to such heights as it had never known before, where reason was no longer able to overtake it.” (713).

“It was already quite dark, and in the south, where he was looking, there were no clouds. The clouds stood on the opposite side. From there came flashes of lightning and the roll of distant thunder. Levin listened to the drops monotonously dripping from the lindens in the garden and looked at the familiar triangle of stars and the branching Milky Way passing though it. At each flash of lightning not only the Milky Way but the bright stars also disappeared, but as soon as the lighting died out they reappeared in the same places, as if thrown by some unerring hand.

“Well, what is it that disturbs me?” Levin said to himself, feeling beforehand that the resolution of his doubts, though he did not know it yet, was already prepared in his soul” (815)

“This new feeling hasn’t changed me, hasn’t made me happy or suddenly enlightened, as I dreamed – just like the feeling for my son. Nor was there any surprise. And faith or not faith – I don’t know what it is – but this feeling has entered into me just as imperceptibly through suffering and has firmly lodged itself in my soul.

“I’ll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul's holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I’ll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I’ll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray—but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!” (817) 

Life is meant to be lived with joy and purpose. And we are meant to take the dark threads and bright threads of this tapestry of life and use our experiences to help lift others. 

A life of joy with gratitude and sorrow without resentment. 

Living a life to be proud of. 

"If life could write itself, it would write like Tolstoy." --Virginia Woolf

first you dream.

"Put your hand on your heart," 

the old man said. 

"Inside you, there is a power, 

there are ideas, 

thoughts that no one else has ever thought of,

there is the strength to love, 

purely and intensely, 

and to have someone love you back--

there is the power to make people happy, 

and to make people laugh--

it's full compliments, 

and the power to change lives and futures. 

Don't forget that power, 

and don't ever give up on it." -- atticus

 [these pictures are blurry. but they capture a moment. a beautiful moment of expectation, achievement and joy. pure undiluted excitement and joy.]

Yesterday was a good day. Just a very, very good day. Spring is here in Provo. There is hope in the air. And spring in my soul. 

Did you know there is a pink blossom tree right by our stairwell? I don't know what kind of tree it is exactly. Maybe an American Redbud. But right now it is a pink blossom tree. And I love it. 

[hello there, pink blossom tree.]

The real spring is here. And there are so many possibilities. Spinning arrows. Doors opening. Life. Life in all of its forms. 

[the look of a dreamer.]

Because you know what? Life--real life--can be frightening. It can be suffocating. 

But it is also glorious. Glorious, beautiful, and real. 

As Emily Dickinson said, the "soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience." 

Because you never know when that ecstatic experience will come. 

Be ready to catch and embrace it. 

song of the day: "first you dream," audra mcdonald 

The sound of silence

"The life of every being has some vast emptiness in it. Unspeakable, grievous. There is a field in the middle of my wood where no one goes. It is the heart of my loneliness. I go there to dance and be quiet. And I love the intensity of its silence. You must know every contour of your emptiness before you can know who you wish to invite in." -- Taisia Kitaiskaia

Sometimes I think we are too afraid of quietness. Of being still. Of being alone.

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.

But we needn't be afraid of being alone with ourselves. To know our ins and outs. To know the intensity of silence.

We need to become aware of our life's flow.

The essence of what makes us be.

"the sound of silence" simon and garfunkel.  

The Joy of Our Redemption

I've been thinking a lot about Eve the past couple weeks. Actually, I've been thinking about her and studying her story deeply over the past year as I've contemplated her story and how a correct understanding of the Fall and of Eve's role in the Fall helps us understand ourselves. Understanding Adam and Eve is crucial to understanding who we are as sons and daughters of God.

There is power in knowing who we are.

There is power in knowing our past.

The Mother of All Living, by Al Young 

And Eve is at the beginning of all of our stories. She is the one who made the courageous, faithful decision to enter mortality. (And I know that this is a different perspective of Eve and the Fall than most people have--and it can be difficult to understand. But I am grateful for restored views of the doctrine of the Fall. The doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the Fall was necessary and that Adam and Eve are to be honored for deciding to partake of the fruit. If you have any questions, send me a message and I'd be happy to talk about it.)

Last week, I had the opportunity to present about Eve and how perceptions of Eve affect Mormon women. While there, I had the chance to meet Camille Fronk Olson (whom I deeply admire) and who has written extensively about Eve and other biblical women. It was wonderful to just talk with her (if only for a little bit) about the importance of Eve in the plan of God, and how she is a remarkable role model and example for women and men today.

I also had the opportunity to give a Relief Society lesson at church today about Eve. And it was a wonderful opportunity for me to share what I've learned about Eve this past year. Like I mentioned above, a correct understanding of ourselves and our past empowers and enlightens us. And so I feel like sharing a few quotes, scriptures, and epiphanies about Eve and the Fall which have helped me on my journey to understanding this incredible woman.

Necessity of the Fall: 
2 Nephi 2:14-25 (all of it, but particularly verses 16, 22-25):
v. 16 "Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
v.22-25 "And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.
Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."

Moses 5:10-12
"And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.
And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.
And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.

Elder Russell M. Nelson:
"Their bodies of flesh and bone were made in the express image of God's. In that state of innocence, they were not yet mortal. They could have no children, were not subject to death, and could have lived in Eden's garden forever. Thus we might speak of the Creation in terms of paradisaical creation. If that state had persisted, you and I would still be stranded among the heavenly host as unborn sons and daughters of God. The great plan [. . .] would have been frustrated. [. . . ] Should they eat from the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil,' their bodies would change; mortality and eventual death would come upon them. But partaking of that fruit was prerequisite to their parenthood. [. . .] While I do not fully understand all the biochemistry involved, I do know that their physical bodies did change; blood began to circulate in their bodies. Adam and Eve thereby became mortal. [. . .] Accordingly, we could speak of the fall of Adam in terms of a mortal creation because 'Adam fell that men might be.'"

Joseph Fielding Smith:
"Adam and Eve did the very thing the Lord intended them to do. If we had the original record we would see the purpose of the Fall clearly stated and its necessity explained."

Elder Russell M. Nelson:
"We and all mankind are forever blessed because of Eve's great courage and wisdom. By partaking of the fruit first, she did what needed to be done. Adam was wise enough to do likewise."

Adam and Eve as Equal Companions 
Genesis 2:18--"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him."
There is a lot of misunderstanding of what "help meet" means. There is a negative connotation--like Eve was made as an afterthought. However, looking at the definition of "help meet" illuminates the text. The Oxford English Dictionary describes "help meet" as "even with or equal to." The Hebrew definition is even more enlightening. The Hebrew word for "help meet" comes from two words--ezer, meaning "to save, to rescue," and has the meaning of something majestic, strong, and powerful; and k'enegdo, which means "equal." Unfortunately, words are lost in translation, but imagine if we read the Genesis text like this: "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a majestic, saving power, equal with him, to be his companion." I think it is glorious. (For more information about the Hebrew definitions, see Beverley Campbell, "Mother Eve, Mentor for Today's Woman: A Heritage of Honor.")

Moses 6:9--"In the image of his [God's] own body, male and female, created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created and became living souls in the land upon the footstool of God." (emphasis added--but the connotation that Adam is not only a first name, but can also be used to describe Adam and Eve as a couple.)

Elder Bruce R. McConkie:
"Christ and Mary, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and a host of mighty men and equally glorious women comprised that group of 'the noble and great ones,' to whom the Lord Jesus said: 'We will go down, for there is space there ,and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell."

President Ezra Taft Benson:
"In the beginning, God placed a woman in a companion role with the priesthood. . . . She was to act in partnership with him."

Nature of the Transgression 
Elder Dallin H. Oaks: "For reasons that have not been revealed, this transition, or 'fall,' could not happen without a transgression--an exercise of moral agency amounting to a willful breaking of a law. [. . .] It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression but eternally a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life. Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same. And thus Eve and 'Adam fell that men might be.'"

Elder Joseph Fielding Smith:
"I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. [. . .] There was a transgression of the law, but not a sin . . . for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!"

Elder Boyd K. Packer:
"The Fall came by transgression of a law, but there was no sin connected with it. There is a difference between transgression and sin. Both always bring consequences. While it may not be sin to step off a roof, in doing so, you become subject to the law of gravity and consequences will follow. [. . .] The fall of man was made from the presence of God to this mortal life."

Elder John A. Widstoe:
"The eternal power of choice was respected by the Lord himself. [. . .] It really converts the command into a warning, as much as to say, if you do this thing, you will bring upon yourself a certain punishment, but do it if you choose. [. . .] The Lord had warned Adam and Eve of the hard battle with earth conditions if they chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He would not subject his son and daughter to hardship and death of their bodies unless it be of their own choice. They must choose for themselves. They chose wisely, in accord with the heavenly law of love for others."

"Glorious Mother Eve" 
Doctrine and Covenants 138: 38-39--"Among the great and mighty ones who were assembled in this vast congregation were Father Adam, the Ancient of Days and father of all,
And our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God."

Beverley Campbell: "Eve, first woman of earthly creation, companion of Adam, and mother and matriarch of the human race, is honored by Latter-day Saints as one of the most important, righteous, and heroic of all the human family. Eve's supreme gift to mankind, the opportunity of life on this earth, resulted from her choice to become mortal."

Sheri Dew:
Eve "made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened the way for us to progress. She set an example of womanhood for men to respect and women to follow, modeling the characteristics with which we as women have been endowed: heroic faith, a keen sensitivity to the Spirit, an abhorrence of evil, and complete selflessness. Like the Savior, 'who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,' Eve, for the joy of helping initiate the human family, endured the Fall. She loved us enough to help lead us."

Sarah Kimball:
Eve is to be giving "reverent honor for taking the initiative to partake of the fruit."

Emmeline B. Wells:
"We are taught that Eve was the first to sin. Well, she was simply more progressive than Adam. She did not want to live in the beautiful garden for ever, and be nobody--not able even to make her own aprons."

Eve as Example: 
President Henry B. Eyring:
"By revelation, Eve recognized the way home to God. She knew that the Atonement of Jesus Christ made eternal life possible in families. She was sure, as you can be, that as she kept her covenants with her Heavenly Father, the Redeemer and the Holy Ghost would see her and her family through whatever sorrows and disappointments would come. She knew she could trust in Them."

Elder John A. Widstoe:
"In life all must choose at times. Sometimes, two possibilities are good; neither is evil. Usually, however, one is of greater import than the other. When in doubt, each must choose that which concerns the good of others--the greater law--rather than that which chiefly benefits ourselves--the lesser law. The greater must be chosen whether it be law or thing. That was the choice made in Eden."

Anyway, there is good sampling of some of the quotes I've found about Eve and the Fall. Of course there is so much more, and if any of you would like to talk more about this, I would love to. It's something I'm passionate about, if you couldn't tell. :)

I think one reason I love Eve's story so much is because her story is our story. Of course, none of us will have to make the decision of leaving Eden to become mortal. That was Adam and Eve's choice. That was the hardest choice Eve ever had to make. (And it must have been terrifying to her not knowing if Adam would make the same choice to leave Eden and choose to be with her--I can only imagine her fear.)

But, each of us will have those crossroads in our lives where we have to choose between staying in our figurative Edens . . . or stepping out into that dark, scary, unknown world without knowing exactly what is ahead of us. And in those moments, we can look to Eve as an example of faith and agency. She sacrificed Eden for something better--she sacrificed Eden for a chance to work out her own salvation. And that is beautiful to me.

The Joy of Our Redemption, by Al Young

[For more reading on this subject, I recommend Beverley Campbell's Eve and the Choice Made in Eden, Camille Fronk Olson's Women of the Old Testament, Beverley Campbell's "Mother Eve, Mentor for Today's Woman: A Heritage of Honor, and Valerie Hudson Cassler's "The Two Trees.")

just some pinterest words of wisdom

Because sometimes it's surprisingly right on:

It's kind of hard to read, so here is what it says:

"Please hear me, Girl: The world has enough women who know how to do their hair. It needs women who know how to do hard and holy things."

I think that is beautiful. And although I think it's possible for women to know how to do their hair and do hard and holy things, doing hard and holy things needs to come first.

Words of Wisdom

Sometimes you're doing research for a professor and you stumble upon gems.

Like this one, from a young man's manual in the 1830s:

"It seems to be forgotten by many men, that sensible female love is founded in respect. A cultivated lady must always respect a man, or she cannot love him. Ladies usually think more of talent and good sense than men do; men are wont to be more attracted by beauty and by grace of manner. Hence ladies always despise a simpering, pretty man who treats them like dolls. They wish to see a man know something, and they wish to have him treat them as though they knew something too.” -- The Young Man's Aid to Knowledge, Virtue, and Happiness, page 368

Amen, brother. 

Scripture Power

One of my life goals is to be a "sister scriptorian."

I love these quotes from President Kimball:

"We want our sisters to be scholars of the scriptures. . . . You need an acquaintanceship with his eternal truths for your own well being, and for the purposes of teaching your own children and all others who come within your influence."

"We want our homes to be blessed with sister scriptorians--whether you are single or married, young or old, widowed or living in a family. . . . Become scholars of the scriptures--not to put others down, but to lift them up!" (both quotes can be found in the March 2010 Visiting Teaching Message here.)

Also, look at this cool quote from President Benson:

"I have a vision of thousands of missionaries going into the mission field with hundreds of passages memorized from the Book of Mormon so that they might feed the needs of a spiritually famished world." ~October 1988 General Conference

I've made it a goal to memorize hundreds of scriptures and to be a sister scriptorian, to not only bless my own life, but others' as well. It's a lofty goal, to be sure. But a noble one.

Recently, I've taken to memorizing scriptures while exercising. It's fun and pretty effective. And by memorizing scriptures, I completed another goal on my bucketlist!

#12-Become a "sister scriptorian." Have at least 100 scriptures entirely memorized. 

Becoming a sister scriptorian is an on-going process. I'm pretty sure it will take me a lifetime to complete. But I feel pretty good about having one hundred scriptures memorized. I just hope I keep them memorized.

Also . . . I'm about to have another goal crossed off my bucketlist:

#2--Serve a mission--whether as a 21-year-old or with my husband. 

The husband will have to wait for awhile. But the mission--that's coming closer and closer every day. Aieee!

Savoring the World

"Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first." -- E.B. White 

Yes, yes, yes. My thoughts exactly.