Happy Easter!

On Easter in most of Eastern Europe, people greet each other with a special saying. Instead of simply saying, "Hello," or not saying anything to each other at all (which is more common), people say, "Христос воскрес!" 

Christos Voskres. Christ is risen. 

And in response, people will say, "Во истинну воскрес!" Vo istininy, voskres! In truth, he is risen! 

It is a beautiful tradition. Everyone participates, and it was the one day where people would actually smile at me when I talked to them. Easter was a day of hope, joy, and peace. As it should be. 

A few of my favorite things: 

Ukrainian Easter eggs. 

 Coolest thing ever. 

 

Ukraine in springtime. Lilacs. And Cectpa Ahlstrom.

I am so grateful for Easter. I am grateful for the Resurrection and for Christ's atoning sacrifice for us. 

Because of Him, we have hope. 

Because of Him, we will all live, because everything Jesus touches, lives. 

Because of Him, we know how to live. 

Because of Him, we can be healed, in both body and spirit. 

Because of Him, there are no endings, only eternal beginnings. 

God be thanked for the divine gift of His Son. 

Also. This video is beautiful. 

He is risen! In truth, He is risen. 

Don't Cry For Me, Украина

. . . because I am crying for you.

Today, I think of Ukraine. Everywhere I turn, I am reminded of her.

She haunts me.

Those streets--those broken-down, dusty streets
The smells of burning leaves mixed with burnt garbage
The grey Soviet doms, with the green of spring pressing through the cracks,
and lilacs in bloom.
The rynok (market) ladies selling pickled cabbage,
dried fish,
strawberries.
Exiting a marshrutka and walking down those familiar streets to the branch building
to an investigator's home,
to our apartment.
Those wrinkled, tough, wonderful babushki.
My beautiful, beautiful people.
Now at war with each other.
My heart--my heart is bursting with sorrow.

They've closed my mission.
All 85 missionaries. Gone from Donetsk.
From Mariupol.
From Makeevka.
From Kharkov.
And it makes me want to weep.
(I'd be lying to say that I haven't wept.)

I know that there is time for hope. That even when all hell is loosed, hope still remains.
She always does.
And the Ukrainian people are, if nothing else, resilient.
They keep coming back.
There are promises to keep.

But for right now . . . for right now . . . my heart aches.

Because I love them. I love Ukraine. My heart aches because I care and because I love.

Two years ago on Thursday will be two years since I set foot in Ukraine. That day changed my life forever. Because of that, spring will always remind me of Ukraine. Of new beginnings.  

I just--there are no words to describe the love I have for that place. A holy place for me. A place where I grew to know God. Where I learned to love. Where I hurt more than I knew was possible. Where I learned that suffering could carve out a soul. Where I changed forever.

"I wish I had more inspiring things to say on my year-mark," I wrote in my journal almost a year ago today, "but I'm running out of time and I know new, exciting things are going to happen soon, so I'm just going to share one experience today that was so very 'Ukraine':

"Sister Erekson and I were walking on a bridge today. The bridge runs parallel to a highway, which leads to the big, looming steel factories, which have completely destroyed and polluted the air and water here. On either side of the bridge was a chastni dom sektor (private home area), with old homes and fences and blooming, budding trees. There was a railroad track running beneath the bridge and men pounding away at rocks. And another man taking care of goats with his granddaughter. And then the inlets of the polluted Azov Sea.

"It was just--Ukraine. It was one of those moments where I knew exactly where I was--Ukraine. This is Ukraine. I live in Ukraine."

How do you describe these feelings? My words fail me. Because to understand me, you would have to stand on that bridge with me and watch the flowered trees dance in the cool April breeze and hear the grandpa with the goats telling his granddaughter to watch out for the goat which bites; you'd have to sit with me in a tiny Ukrainian house, with golden-evening autumn light falling, as a beloved sister realizes for the first time that the Book of Mormon is true; you'd have to be jam-packed in the Metro, or better yet, in a green marshrytka as it careens down the broken streets of Kharkov.

To understand me, you'd have to live in Ukraine.

And you would have to leave your heart there.

Я люблю Украину. Украина, я тебя люблю.

I love Ukraine. Ukraine, I love you. 

April is the cruellest month*

. . . and it's also National Poetry Month!

*(my apologies to T.S. Eliot and The Wasteland)

Being the logophile and English nerd that I am, you knew that this was coming. I mean, I am that English major who has to restrain herself from quoting Shakespeare and Wordsworth at parties.

Oh wait . . . I do it anyway.

But there is just something so beautiful about the spontaneous overflow of emotion that can cut you to the core, leave you breathless, and sing in harmony with your soul.

Poetry is the language of the soul.

There are times when a poem expresses exactly what I'm feeling--it gives words and meaning to emotions I couldn't make sense of. Poems make it possible for me to sort myself out. Many times, interpreting a poem is something spiritual for me. Like when reading John Keats's "Ode to Autumn" or Gerard Manley Hopkins's "The Windhover."

Poetry is a part of my life. I can tell you which poets can help after a broken heart or dashed dream (Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda are some of my favorites), and which ones are perfect for a budding romance (W.B. Yeats. All of the way. Love his poetry, especially his love poetry, so so much). And then there's Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou, and Dylan Thomas for those moments when you need an extra boost.

And then, there are just those poems which are simply delicious to read. Where phrases stick in your mind for days, 'til you can't get them out and you just have to repeat them over, and over, and over again in your mind, until they unexpectedly become a part of your vocabulary.

I could go on.

But instead, I'll just end with a poem which has stuck with me recently. Haunted me, I guess you could say. I can't get it out of my soul. So that means I have to share it.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

                                         -e.e. cummings

sisters.

So, I've been meaning to write this blog post for months. But, seeing that this semester has been absolutely insane, I'm finally sitting down to write it. Consider it my take on the General Women's Meeting and preparation for General Conference.

Also, you should check out Em's blog about this same topic. Because she is wonderfully articulate and because her blog is much prettier than mine.

This semester I've had the wonderful opportunity of taking a Mormon Women's History class. It's been a powerful experience for me. There really is such a need for us--all of us--to understand our past. Understanding our history gives us a sense of purpose and identity. It strengthens us and helps us know who we are and what we're capable of.

That's what learning about Mormon women has done for me. It helps me realize just how rich our past is, and the incredible examples of strength and faithfulness I can draw on--whether they were born in 1890 or 1991. There is power in agency--in making those choices to believe and to act according to those beliefs every day. There is beauty in the fact that women like Emmeline B. Wells, Eliza R. Snow, Hannah Tapfield King, Patty Bartlett Sessions and thousands more like them lived. They lived, loved, and strove to keep the covenants which they had made with God.

And that is what connects me to these women the most--that I have made those same covenants with God and that I am striving to keep them.

I appreciated the emphasis in the General Women's Meeting about focusing on covenant-making and covenant-keeping. Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? It is in making these covenants that we see the power of God in our lives and that we realize who we truly are. Making and keeping our covenants with God so that we can learn to live as He does and become like Him. This is because keeping covenants is not only doing what we know we should, but it is a process of becoming.

Mormon women are covenant-keeping women. There is strength, safety, and power found in making and keeping covenants with God. There's not just one way to be a Mormon woman. We are all different and come from different walks of life and have different desires, hopes, and dreams. There is beauty in that diversity. We are all going to have different journeys in life and we are going to disagree about politics, how to raise children, and favorite ice cream flavors. But, what can and should unite us is that we have made covenants with God and we are striving to keep them.

Striving to keep our covenants means that we choose every day to mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and stand as a witness of God at all times, things, and places. We strive to be an example of the believers. We try every day to be like Jesus--we choose a disciple's life, knowing that choosing to be a disciple is not an easy path.

And we help each other to keep the covenants we have all made.

It is in making and keeping those covenants which connects us all. That is what unites us as sisters throughout the world and throughout history. There is no need for division--whether single, married, divorced, working, in-school, black, white, young, or old.

Because the heart of the matter is we are all sisters.

Sisters keeping covenants.

holding us in place is simply fear of what's already changed

just. this song. i've been obsessed with it as of late.

a kind of rainy days and mondays thing, i guess.



'til black and white begin to color in.

you can have manhattan.

90/10

It's beginning to look a lot like springtime everywhere you go on BYU campus. 

But the biggest indicator of spring is not the daffodils, the robins, Daylight Savings, or even the warmer temperatures. 

It's the sheer amount of couples which have appeared overnight, holding hands all over campus, and lingering at apartment doorsteps. 

My apartment balcony has a great view--not only of the Y and Mount Timpanogos, but also of the building next-door . . . which is full of young, beautiful, single girls who are frequently asked out on dates. 

How do I know? Because I'll be doing homework or chatting with roommates with the blinds open and then unexpectedly see their doorstep scenes. 

And let me tell you, last night the doorstep scene in the building across the way from us got a little ridiculous. 

You wouldn't think that a Monday night would be such a popular date night. I didn't, either, but apparently I was wrong. I stumbled across at least three doorstep scenes. Three. On a Monday night. 

The weekends are even better. Like, you can pull up a lawn chair, pop up some popcorn, and you've got yourself a real-life chick flick. Ten of them, even. All in one night. 

Hey, if it sounds creepy it's because it is. 

*P.S. Name the movie this post title comes from and you can get a front-row seat this Friday night on our balcony to watch the show. I'll get the popcorn. 

Happy International Women's Day!

[Yes, I know that Google Doodle celebrated Women's Day yesterday, but it really is on March 8th.]

Last year I celebrated Women's Day for the first time in my life. It's not a holiday we celebrate in America, which I think is a shame, because it's a way to celebrate the goodness of all women in our lives--mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends--and the strength that women bring to the world.

I obviously have a lot to say on the subject of women and our strength, the potential we have to do good in the world, and the importance of using our voices . . . so much to say that it would be silly to put it all in one blog post. But this I do want to say today:

I believe their is power and strength in womanhood. I believe this even when opposing forces--from both men and, sometimes, women--tell me otherwise. Women are strong. We are strong and we are diversified, and there is strength in that diversity. We are strong because there is inherent strength in being women. We show strength when we give and when we love and choose to live deliberately. We are strong because we want to make a difference in the world; to make our corner of the world more refined, just, and beautiful . . . better than how we found it.

I will teach my girls that they are strong. That they are beautiful and powerful and good. I will teach them where true confidence and grace come from. I will teach them to love being a woman--and I will teach them to form strong, good, healthy relationships with men and boys. This is not a competition between men and women. We need unity. Because although both men and women are strong individually, we are stronger and better together. And I will teach my boys that a "strong woman" is not an oxymoron. I will teach them to seek out strong, confident, kind women and introduce them to heroines in life and in literature so that they know it is normal and good to have a strong woman for a classmate, a friend, a wife.

I believe all women are beautiful. That we are strong. And that we have voices to use and songs to sing.

So, to all of the women in my life who have been examples of strength, beauty, and grace to me . . . thank you. And to all the men in my life who have encouraged me to be a strong woman and to live my dreams, thank you for that, too.

Happy Women's Day!