Another of the Reasons I love Rumi

CRY OUT IN YOUR WEAKNESS 
A dragon was pulling a bear into its terrible mouth.

A courageous man went and rescued the bear.
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save
anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself, 
they run toward the screaming.

And they can't be bought off.
If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard 
your helplessness."

Where lowland is,
that's where water goes. All medicine wants
is pain to cure.

And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet.
Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton
of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.

Push the hair our of your eyes.
Blow the phlegm from your nose,
and from your brain.

Let the wind breeze through.
Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever.
*             *                    *
Tear the binding from around the foot
of your soul, and let it race around the track
in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed
so tight around your neck. Accept your new good luck.

Give your weakness
to one who helps.

Crying out loud and weeping are great resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.
Just a little beginning whimper,
and she's there.
God created the child, that is, your wanting,
so that it might cry out,
so that milk might come.

Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.

The hard rain and wind
are ways the cloud has 
to take care of us.

Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.

Ignore those that make you fearful
and sad, that degrade you
back toward disease and death.

Shoes, and Ships, and Sealing Wax

I dreamed of shoes last night.

They were beautiful.  Loafers with a square toe, leopard skin with pink bows.  Wow, what a shoe. I don't know if they really exist. The first part of the dream was not so beautiful.  I was going to a friend's house for a function. On the way there I got a phone call from said friend's husband. "Hey, you will have to drive we don't have gas and we spend a lot of money on you anyway, so it is your turn to spend some money." and then the call ended. I was in shock.  Had I been unknowingly draining my friends? Was I a burden to them? Money is tight for me and for them.  I tried to call back, but no answer. (This is funny because I rarely talk on the phone while I am driving; what is more funny is that I began to try and text him back and express my sorrow and hurt at his comment. I never text in the car.)  I was having trouble texting and driving at the same time (wonder of wonders) and I got hit by a semi. As I am thrown from the car all I can think about is that I am leaving this world in deep debt  to my friends and family.  Then out of nowhere I was wearing these amazing shoes.  I began to think dying might not be so bad if I left this world in such style.

And then I woke up.

Can you say "Anxiety Dream"?

New Thoughts for the New Year

A. I hate Black Board.  For those of you unaffiliated with the Academic world, Black Board is an electronic component of teaching that is basically like a really low tech blog for educational file sharing. Blergh. I have been trying to get all my classes set up and just finished organizing power points and files. So I was already to upload and  . . . a little box pops up . . . . we are experiencing technical difficulties. Would you like to wait for these websites or kill the pages?  I press wait. 5 seconds later.. . same box. This happens four times. So I go all the way out of my browser. Start fresh, new clicks. Same thing.  Yes, actually I would like to kill the pages, and my browser, and several other nouns that may or may not be people.

B. I wish I could figure out a safe way to write on my laptop while enjoying a long hot bath. Seriously electronics and hot water should be able to mix without producing a electric shock that will fry more than my brains. Writing and the tub are two of my most relaxing tools to fight stress. Imagine combining them. Writing in the tub is very problematic, even with pen and paper. Water soluble objects. Paper likes to disintegrate, ink runs, the humidity hurts even spiral bound notebooks.

C. Technology. Yup. It has me in its clutches. Even I who don't text when a real person is in the room, I who turn off the TV when a breathing entity calls--not on the phone, in person.  I think all the critical thinking that I advocate to my students is starting to get to me.  Maybe technology is taking us over, or we are letting technology take us.  Maybe Google is getting ready to take over the world.  I know they will read this, hi Big Brother Google; it's Blogger after all. So do I go off grid? No, I write a blog about it. Hum.

D. Life is funny. Sometimes when we are trying to do what we have been asked to do, and want to do, and have put so much work in to do--we have to wait. Yes, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months (cringe), years (sigh). Does that mean that the time spent waiting is a waste of time? That all depends on what we do while we are waiting. Do we take that time to take deep breaths, become introspective, connect with others that matter most to us, read a good book? Or do we sit around and plan various nasty things to do to those people and things that make us wait? Do we question our worth if what we want to have happen doesn't happen? If what we wanted that we don't have makes us less valuable as people or teachers or parents or women or men, etc.? Sometimes the things that seem to be a good idea and really what we think would help us most, are those things that are the most dangerous to us. Sometimes we have to do things one at a time instead of at the same time. And sometimes the value of those things and moments in time become the sweeter for their separateness.  And they become more valuable and precious for the amount of time we have to wait for them one at a time. Sometimes we think too much and make things harder for ourselves when all that we are asked to do is just take it a day, an hour, a minute, or a second at a time.  Those heartbeats are not undervalued. Those breaths are not disparaged. Those thoughts are not pointless. Those feelings are no less precious.

Sometimes being a lily of the field is exactly what we are supposed to be.

PS. I hate the word "things". It is so ambiguous. I preach against its use in all of my classes. But for once it has fulfilled the measure of its creation. Fill in the blank with the things in your life. Change all the us's and you's and we's to I's, me's, and mine's and this is really about me. no really.

Christmas Eve

My Grandpa during WWII

I am sitting in the light of the nine foot Christmas tree in my room.  I have just taken a long hot bath and I am listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing "Silent Night" as Walter Kronkite tells the story of the Christmas Eve truce. I am missing my grandpa so much I can't see as my eyes fill with tears.  My grandpa Geary died of colon cancer in April of 2000.  In 1995 he was diagnosed.  That Christmas he began to talk about the war.  World War II. He told of Christmas in the foxholes and how for one sweet silent night there was peace in the winter countryside of France.  He fought in the the Battle of the Bulge.  He was forward observer for the 75th Division Cannon Company.  He had never talked about the war before, not to anyone. And suddenly he began to talk.

After The Battle of The Bulge Grandpa helped to liberate Paris

The is Grandpa and his best friend David. My dad is named after him.

Every year after, he would gather us around him and in the light of the Christmas tree he would tell us about the war. Our last Christmas Eve together was in 1999.  Everyone was downstairs opening presents.  I was up in the living room because I had just had my tonsils removed the day before.  Grandpa had just had a tumor removed from his windpipe. We had become very close--he was one of my best friends.  That night he told me that he was afraid to die of suffocation.  The war had instilled in him a fear of creeping gases and being trapped in tight places. He had suffered from asthma his entire life.  He didn't want to struggle for breath.  That night his skin was almost translucent.  Many rounds of chemo had made his body a shrunken husk.  But he was warm and calm and peaceful.  That night he told me that he knew he was going to die.  Then he asked me the impossible. He asked me to sing at his funeral.  I will always remember that Christmas Eve and that is why I miss him so much on this night.

And yet . . .
Death is not the end.  How fitting that this night of nights reminds us that death has no sting.  The grave has no power.  The Son of Righteousness came to save us--with healing in his wings. So now as I watch my niece and nephews in their interminable energy and zest of the season, I know Grandpa is with us.  Families are forever.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son."

Happy Christmas.

The Living Christ

As we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ two

millennia ago, we offer our testimony of the

reality of His matchless life and the infinite

virtue of His great atoning sacrifice. None other has had

so profound an influence upon all who have lived and

will yet live upon the earth.

He was the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament, the

Messiah of the New. Under the direction of His Father,

He was the creator of the earth. “All things were made by

him; and without him was not any thing made that was

made” (John 1:3). Though sinless, He was baptized to 

fulfill all righteousness. He “went about doing good”

(Acts 10:38), yet was despised for it. His gospel was a 

message of peace and goodwill. He entreated all to follow

His example. He walked the roads of Palestine, healing

the sick, causing the blind to see, and raising the dead. He

taught the truths of eternity, the reality of our premortal

existence, the purpose of our life on earth, and the potential

for the sons and daughters of God in the life to come.

He instituted the sacrament as a reminder of His great

atoning sacrifice. He was arrested and condemned on

spurious charges, convicted to satisfy a mob, and sentenced

to die on Calvary’s cross. He gave His life to atone for the

sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in

behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.

We solemnly testify that His life, which is central to all

human history, neither began in Bethlehem nor concluded

on Calvary. He was the Firstborn of the Father, the Only

Begotten Son in the flesh, the Redeemer of the world.

He rose from the grave to “become the firstfruits of them

that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20). As Risen Lord, He visited

among those He had loved in life. He also ministered

among His “other sheep” (John 10:16) in ancient America.

In the modern world, He and His Father appeared to the

boy Joseph Smith, ushering in the long-promised 

“dispensation of the fulness of times” (Ephesians 1:10).

Of the Living Christ, the Prophet Joseph wrote: “His

eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white

like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the

brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the

rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying:

“I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am

he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father”

(D&C 110:3–4).

Of Him the Prophet also declared: “And now, after the

many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the

testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and

we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only

Begotten of the Father—

“That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds

are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are

begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:22–24).

We declare in words of solemnity that His priesthood

and His Church have been restored upon the earth—

“built upon the foundation of . . . apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”

(Ephesians 2:20).

We testify that He will someday return to earth. “And

the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall

see it together” (Isaiah 40:5). He will rule as King of

Kings and reign as Lord of Lords, and every knee shall

bend and every tongue shall speak in worship before

Him. Each of us will stand to be judged of Him according

to our works and the desires of our hearts.

We bear testimony, as His duly ordained Apostles—

that Jesus is the Living Christ, the immortal Son of God.

He is the great King Immanuel, who stands today on the

right hand of His Father. He is the light, the life, and the

hope of the world. His way is the path that leads to

happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come.

God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son.