Envious

A 17-year old boy spoke in our sacrament meeting this Sunday on his recent trip to India. I live in an affluent part of Salt Lake and I could tell by the words and sentence structure this young man used that he had probably been enrolled in advanced classes since middle school. At first, I wasn’t looking forward to his talk because I thought it might be more about what he did and how poor the people were, what he brought to them. But he surprised me. He said that even through their poverty, family was the central part of their lives and children the pride of parents. He may not have stated it this way, but his heart was softened, expanded because of what he saw.

While he was speaking, I looked about the congregation and wondered what blessings and love we were missing because we were too haughty. A ward in Salt Lake City, with women dressed in fur-lined vests, children with Ralph Lauren bow ties, teens with $300 boots…and it made me a little sad. I’m no exception, I get caught up in it too. It made me wonder what I was missing. And then I remembered all of the refreshing times I’ve spent with the humble people of the earth, those who are truly meek. I have met orphans in Port-au-Prince, I’ve met 4’10 Peruvians in Cachicadan, I’ve met a pre-school director in Armenia, villagers in Ghana, Cubans in Salt Lake City—each of them with the earned countenance of meekness. I’ve been lucky enough to meet people who ‘will inherit the earth’ after all of their trials and refining.

And you know, the likelihood of meeting the meek is so much greater in developing countries rather than developed ones. That’s why I love to go to them so much. I see real love. As just one example: I left the USA for the first time for Romania when I was 16. My brother had served a mission there and we were able to visit some of the families he had grown close to. Most families lived in apartment blocs, tall cement buildings from Communist times. The Radus were one such family and they had invited us for dinner.

Enter apartment: Bright pink brocade wall paper, faded, with a few paintings on the walls, also faded. A wooden coffee table that I couldn’t tell whether was old enough to be considered classic or just old. Worn furniture, but very clean. It was a peaceful place, a beautiful place. For dinner the single mother of 3 had made us sarmalas, rice and sausage stuffed cabbage leaves. I loved them! For dessert she had made a cake, a cake with pure butter frosting decorated with raisins. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat pure butter. I can’t remember what I did with the butter I couldn’t eat, but I hope it wasn’t offensive. It was a lovely dinner and a lovely place to feel love. On our way back to our hotel, my brother told us they had probably saved for a month to give us such a fine dinner, and that their dinners would be small for quite some time afterwards. I am still moved by that sacrifice. And sometimes I am envious that I have so much I may never really know what that feeling is like.

So this post is dedicated to the meek, my friends and family who exemplify this virtue, and all of those who will never be recognized for obtaining such a state of being.

SO...moths and true light

The sunday night I got set apart to be RS Pres, a moth was in my room. It wouldn’t stop fluttering. All night long. I was too tired to get up and turn a light on in the living room to try to lead it out of my room until about 5:30 AM. By then it was too late, the light from the windows made the ceiling light, and it couldn’t stop hitting itself against the lighted ceiling. It’s louder than you think when all else is quiet. The sound wasn’t hard or harsh, but repetitive...the moth seemed to be asking ‘isn’t there a way out up here?’. After 5 or 6 minutes it would rest for awhile, and start up again just a few minutes later. One time it waited 5 minutes and I was happy. It’s knocking is uneven, like my dad’s snoring, which is very hard to fall asleep to. And it would only bump against the ceiling, it wouldn’t fly low enough to exit out the door. Every once in awhile it would try lower ground against the walls, but didn’t have perspective to see that the door was the way out. Crazy to me since moths have those cool eyes that look like disco balls. If anything, it seems like dimension should be their forte.

While I was laying there, I thought of all I knew about moths. Moths are stealthy--they use camouflage to hide. I think the biggest dislike towards moths is that they can’t bomb dive, like a peregrine falcon for example. Then they might become my favorite animal. Diving moths could make for some dangerous picnics. Instead the just flutter around, which is one reason why I think people don’t like them. They are too hard to actually see, their movements aren’t rhythmic, they don’t have a pleasing line...they just seem jittery.

The thing that really made me think we were similar besides the fact that 94% of our chromosomes are the same, was that I had felt that feeling of hitting my head against a spiritual ceiling. I knew what it was like to want to more, to want to find comfort in the Gospel, to want to let Jesus take on my burdens, to feel at one with Him like I read about, to be able to bear a testimony full of strength because it was mine and sincere even it if was short and blunt. And trying and trying to find true light, and once it comes sometimes I am too tired or too worked up to just bask in it.

One character trait the moth had that I don’t is it’s meekness. It was never too hard on itself for not finding the way out. It kept trying. In fact, about 7:37 AM I couldn’t hear it moving anymore. After it landed by the trivial pursuit cards on my dresser it was done. I figure there are 2 explanations for that: Decided to go for the worldly knowledge of really useful trivia...or died a life of trying. That’s commitment. And not actually how I want to die, but I thought it could be a useful analogy? You guys tell me, do you feel the same?

My first entry - a special thanks to Jack Weyland

SO...my blog is named SO because those are my initials and I thought it would be kind of funny to start every post with that. I realize it's probably not funny at all, or really that clever, but oh well. Lindsay isn't here to pass the idea by.

So...I started this because I wanted to find my friends through blogger, but instead all I could find was information on how to start my own blog. My sister and my friend Ruthanne were making fun of a new Jack Weyland book because he's tried to update his stories (if you don't know him, he's a LDS author that writes books for teens, most with the same plot: a girl + a problem + a good religious guy = reactivation and overcoming of problem. e.g. Stephanie + drug abuse + Phil, the EQP = temple marriage and drug rehab with no relapse) with modern technology.

So a couple of weeks ago Ruthanne was explaining one of his books and that the main character, you guessed it, a girl that fits into the equation above, was a blogger. We more just laughed about how much we used to love Jack Weyland books and how they've skewed our sense of love and overcoming addiction...but then she started teasing about how Jack didn't really know what blogging was because he wrote about it awkwardly, like someone from the early 90s. :) And then I realized I didn't know what blogging was exactly. So here I am.