On Zion

Reader dear, I hope you've had a lovely week. Mine was sleepless as the kids were often up at night with colds, but it had its bright moments. And now we head out to Lake Tahoe for some good fun. After this week, goodness knows I need it.

                                

Amongst the week's weeds of fatigue and chaos, I grew some thoughts on peace and beauty. It was Pioneer Day in Utah on Friday--the day we celebrate becoming a state and all of the people who gave their hearts and lives to its cause.That made me think about why the Mormons crossed seas and swamps and rivers and plains to come to this desert valley. I can only imagine that it was because of a kind of dancing zeal for Zion that lit up their insides with hope for a better world and energy enough to create it. How did the ambition plant itself there in so many wild hearts? I think The Book of Mormon had quite a bit to do with it.

Lately the text has come alive for me in new ways. I've been noticing more and more that Zion is the record's principle concern. The authors and prophets aim to teach us readers how to bring it about. Every vision and story and speech speaks of it or points to it in some way or another. Lehi's family searches for the promised land--this is Zion. Lehi sees his family partake of the fruit of a tree that makes them happy--this is Zion. The people of King Benjamin cry with one voice "apply the atoning blood of Christ," and feel no more disposition to do evil--this is Zion. Holy prophets testify of Christ, that he can cleanse us and heal us and give us peace--this is Zion. When the people of Nephi become of one heart and one mind, equal in all things and made partakers of the heavenly gift, alive in the spirit, knit together in love--this is  Zion. The rest of the record is about the tragedy of loosing Zion to the horrors of sin. Nephi, Mormon and Moroni urge us to be wiser than their societies have been. The last verses of the final book of the record include a tender plea for the daughter of Zion to strengthen her stakes and to enlarge her borders, to come unto Christ and be perfected. All is the work of at-one-ment.

I love this deep and vast vision. I can see why this book's words stirred believers to sacrifice everything for it,  the kingdom of God, that pearl beyond price of which Jesus himself  so ardently spoke. The early saints who came to the Utah territory were filled with this Zion spirit. It's how they made a desert blossom, by embueing the ground with the love of God and neighbor.

I have seen how the gospel of faith and repentence and covenant keeping brings this spirit into life. My heart marvels over how deeply and consistently The Book of Mormon has something to teach us about individual and collective oneness with the divine. It is the scintillating star for today's saints, those who still strive to build Zion within, at home, and abroad in this last dispensation. Do we take it to be such?

Easy To Be Entreated

"And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated..."  
                                                                           Alma 7:23

Dear Reader, 

Hello again! I'm glad you are here. Today I want to talk about how God is easy to be entreated, just as he asks us to be. 

On the fourth of July, I wrote this in my journal: 

It was a joyous Independence Day spent under the shaded sidewalks of Stratford Avenue for a charming parade--a pocket of sweet Americana. In the afternoon we ate a picnic barbecue and played pin-the-star-on-the-flag. As the sky turned black, we reverenced the day by singing "My Country Tis of Thee." I felt the sacred presence of the Holy Ghost and in that fleeting moment I felt God's love and kindness toward me. It felt humbling. I'm in awe that He knows me and sees me as better than I hope I am. Sometimes I believe in ugly perceptions of myself. I am convinced that I really am those people. But God comforts me that if he is there for me just like that--on the very start of trying to show some portion of reverence--I am not who I've been afraid I am. That means so much to me. 

This simple experience was somehow so ineffably moving that  I've been thinking about it ever since. Not because nothing like it has never happened before, but precisely because it keeps on happening. This time just made me realize how often He so quickly responds to my efforts to reach Him. 

Throughout my life--even from moment to moment during the most common of days--I've felt the tingling warmth, the invisible sunlight of the Holy Ghost, gently falling upon my frame. It comes in times of authentic outreach. It is absolutely un-creatable. It is absolutely real. And it is absolutely good. 

I know that God wants us to ask Him questions. I know that He is the source of comfort and peace, for every time that I have had a heavy heart or a confused mind and I've turned to Him and entreated Him for divine guidance, He has been there. I've knocked and He has opened. 

I will say this--It has been my experience that there is a difference between real seeking and plain stewing. There have been times that I've been stuck in the goo of my own thoughts. Because I'm thinking about spiritual things, I think I'm seeking Him. That has always led to whirls of darkness. But when I include God in prayer about whatever is ailing me, illumination and comfort always come, and usually quickly. 

So today I say that God is so much more accessible than people sometimes think. From personal experience, I know He is as He asks us to be: easy to be entreated--ever there, just waiting for us to invite Him in. 

"Imagine Me with You"

Welcome to Ways of Remembrance and the very first post! I've long felt a need to write out daily spiritual experiences for the joy of my own record, but I hope that this place will also serve to renew and inspire you, that we may be edified together and made “partakers of the heavenly gift.”  I will post on a weekly basis, so stop by every Monday morning to begin the week with wings. Thank you beyond words for being here! 

Sketch by Rembrandt

I am a mother. While my two-year-old James and five-month-old Meg are sunshine and rich soil to my soul, they are also my wind and beating rain. This week they tested the strength of my character with storms of messes and tantrums that stretched me thin-to-bursting. James cracked eggs on the floor and caused all kinds of disasters. He lost it when he couldn’t watch another episode of Curious George. He almost died if he couldn’t hold my keys on the way to the car. He kept trying to step on the small of Meg’s back. He kicked his legs like crazy every time I tried to change his diaper. He ran away from me in public. He hit me when he was mad. Add Meg’s cries into all of that, as well as many nights spent nursing in a chair, and it’s no wonder that by Thursday I felt exhausted, like a candle at the end of its wick, caught up in a whirlwind of incessant whining and sticky messes. 

I regret to tell you that I became a bit of a monster. I yelled. I lost it. I couldn’t think of “natural consequences.” I was afraid that I was failing, that people were judging me, and I pitied myself. 

And yet I didn't want to be a yeller. It didn't feel good. Deep inside I felt like I was offending the spirit, but I also felt overwhelmed by my inability to change, to overcome the urge to scream and spank and stomp about. 

Then, when James got deliriously mad about something flippant, all I could do was summon my might, set his flailing body in the crib and crumble to the ground. In between sobs, I managed to cry out a prayer--you know the kind: one of those genuine, raw, incoherent pleas for help and comfort, a desperate reach for the divine.

It seemed like I had scarcely begun to speak and He was there, falling upon me in the form of gentle clarity. I saw a picture in my mind of a holy being, the Savior, clothed in brilliant light. And the words that came with Him were these: 

"Imagine me with you."

That was it--an instant, simple message, four words wrapped around a single image, the perfect present. 

This small revelation brought me a well of comfort, one from which I have drawn with pleasure and thanksgiving ever since. Imagining Him nearby when I don't know how to handle bad behavior or one more spill has been like conjuring a patronus of sorts, a guardian of light in dark places. Doing so has helped me react with a balance of love and firmness that cultivates the spirit. 

The loveliest thing to come of it was, however, James' surprising reaction to my change of approach. He suddenly seems prone to enthusiastic obedience at best and mild nods of regretful understanding at worst. It's like he knows and trusts that I'm coming from a place of loving kindness that has his true interests in mind. What a difference it has made. 

But I must admit that since receiving this beautiful piece of revelation I have not always remembered to use it. That is the challenge, isn't it? The great pursuit. To return again and again to what we know--to repent, to constantly "stir [ourselves] up to the ways of remembrance." But I find that He is always just a reach away when I happen to forget, with answers that calm interior storms and light up the heart with splendid song.