Dear the World

To the people of Earth,

I would love to read your comments if you feel so inclined to post any. For the longest while I thought that nobody read my blog. Which was nice in a way because I could use it as my online personal journal. But a few people have told me recently that they enjoyed such and such post or that they were offended by this or that. I had no idea they even knew where to find my blog. So to you people I say "Prove it." Let me know what you think. This is a shameless plea for comments. I want to hear from you, people of Earth.

Love,

Garred

PS - Start with the poems. They're short and easy to read.

You Are...

I Am...

Shalom

O ellie, this is the heart

Mount Fuji

Skeletons

mine mine mine

Two Pears

Two Pears

(
two
yellow
pears hug
on a plate in
the kitchen
window)

mine mine mine

Dear Ellie,

This is Jesus. Who lived and lives.
He is the wiggling baby.
He is the gentle friend.
He is the humble healer.
He is the man on the cross.
He is the empty tomb.
He is the deliverer of prayers.
He is the singing crickets.
He is the whispering trees.
He is the winking stars.
He is the roof over our heads.
He is the warmth of your blanket.
He is the softness of your pillow.
He is your laugh when dad is happy.
He keeps you asleep when daddy cries.
And just as you are mine mine mine,
He will always be yours yours yours.

theunexpectedmiracleofsundayfebruary14th2010.

If you want to do something invaluable for yourself today, put on your puffycoat of gratitude. I realized that there is no greater gift that we are able to give in this life. It is a gift we give to both ourselves and the Lord. A salve for our own souls. A tiny basket of glory for Christ. With gratitude we rise above the mucky muck of dumdum troubles and see life for what it really is. We find the happiness of a thousand points of light in our past. We see the bright new star of today. We allow our spirits to comprehend the endless nebulaic blessings that are yet to come. Gratitude is a rope we throw over all time and space, corralling all Eternity into the singularity of our heart. It is the tailor that fits us with the three piece suit of faith, hope, and charity. It is fried potatoes that finally taste good again.

The Pomegranate Heart

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat..."

"... and I, the Lord God, said:...cursed shall be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee....By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground - for thou shalt surely die..."

Opening scene: A haggard little garden in the foreground. The sun rises on the Euphrates in the background. An old woman stands up with weeds in her hands and wipes blood from her fingers on a dingy apron. An old man takes the weeds from her hands and kisses her on the cheek.

Act I: Later that night at the dinner table.

Eve: My wrists done swelled up agin. Don't know if I'll be fit to clear 'dat garden b'fore Sundee.

Adam: You will. Last week it was yo knees. This week it's the wrists. You'll git it done. With time to spare, I reckon.

Eve: Sometimes I wonder if you're just fakin' belief in me just so I help you wit yo chores when I'm done wit mine.

Adam: Sometimes I wonder if your just fakin' yo pains so that you don't hafta. Ain't no way you could clear a whole gard'n by yoself if you wuz really in all 'dat pain. Only a goddess could do dat. Or an angel.

Eve: (blushing) Boy, I swear. Sometimes I don't know if yo extra good to me, o extra bad.

Adam: Extra good, I reckon.

(A baby cries from off stage)

Act II: Several years later. 4 children are running around the house. The house is much larger and more comfortable now. Outside the window lie rows and rows of perfect crops. Eve sits in a rocking chair sewing a patch on some small pants. Adam enters stage left with a broken board in his hand.

Adam: Guess what 'dis is?

Eve: Oh no. Don't tell me Cain was out hittin his 'lil brother agin wit 'dat ol' stick.

Adam: Guess agin. This time I wuz da one doing the beatin'. 'Dat Cain of yours done told me off fer feedin' the cows by hand. He says I'm wastin' ma time doin it 'dat way. Says I can just throw some hay on the ground 'n da cows end up findin' it anyways.

Eve: Ya?

Adam: Ya. An he says he's thought up all sorts a ways to make it so he don't gotta work so hard. He says life should be a piece a cake. So I tells him how ev'ry time he feeds the cows, I gotta tend 'em back to health for weeks cuz a all da rocks they eatin' with da hay. He just looks at me an says, "That's yo problem. Not mine." I ask 'im if he ever wants ta be great some dee. Ya know what he says t' me? He says, "Great sounds like alotta work. Let Abel do da great stuff if you so set on havin' big shot kids. I'll be workin' three days a week an' mindin' ma own bizness."

Eve: So ya got 'im good wit 'dat stick, uh?

Adam: You bes believin' I did.

Act III: Adam-Ondi-Ahman. A great green field is filled with sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.

Adam: (Finishing his speech) 'Dis I seal upon ev'ry one a you, with all my love. You my children, an' I will always be yo grateful dad.

(Adam sits down and Eve begins to speak seated in her rocking chair on the grass hill.)

Eve: Oh my. (Pause) Oh my oh my. If all you ain't a sight. Y'all know I can't stand, but seein' y'all like dis makes it hard ta even speak. A mother's heart is a life all its own. If you'z ever held a baby, y'all know 'dis. It beats diff'rent 'cuz it's heavy wit love. Children, inside a me is a great red pomegranate. I got no doubt it looks all weather'd 'n worn 'n ugly on da outside. It's gotta hard coverin' 'cuz dere's so much rain 'n so much angr'y wind always blowin' at it. An' it's worked 'n worked 'n worked till there ain't nothin' pretty 'bout it. But inside...oh mercy. Inside is ev'ry single one a y'alls. Ev'ry last one. You each a seed in my heart. A sweet bless'ed seed all full 'a life 'n promise. An' each one a yo seeds is wrapped in a wet blanket a tears. That's how I keep'd y'all safe. I work'd. An' I cried. An' dere ain't no otha way to love a seed mo' than 'dat. Yo daddy done bless'd y'all real good. I can't say mo than 'dat. He is da best daddy you ever gonna know. I promise ya 'dat. We both made some real hard choices 'fore y'alls was born. But I tell ya this... ev'ry single one a ya alone woulda been worth it. Ain't no work dat ain't pleasure when it's done for love.

Act IV: Modern day. Everything is clean and ritzy. Every amenity you could imagine. There are throngs of children. Me. You. Some do great things because they are brave, hard things precisely because they are hard. Others shrink with fear.

Girl: (In prayer) Mother Eve, I was not called to be great. This boy that wants me to marry him...I mean he's great and all...but that's just it...he's so set on being great. He wants to change the world. I admire him for it and all, but that's just not me.

Mother Eve: Why ain't 'dat you?

Girl: I don't know. That's not what I want. I just want to have my own little life and take care of my own little family. There's too much out there anyway. I can't change any of it. I think Heavenly Father just wants me to be small.

Mother Eve: Ya know, 'dat was a lie started a long long time ago by someone I sure did love. He hid his God-given goodness from da Lord and called it 'umility. 'Cept der weren't no 'umility 'bout it. He jus wanted to do is comf'table thing and have da Lord accept it as his best. He gave a bit here 'n dere but he wasted most 'a what da good Lord gave 'im cuz he was scared. Or lazy. Or some'n. He had a comf'table life 'cuz a all da work his parents done did. But he never did da work hizself. 'Dat ain't 'umility. Dat's jus takin' an never giv'n back.

Girl: I'm not like that. I JUST WASN'T CALLED TO BE GREAT.

Mother Eve: Then you wuz not called to be one a my children.

Girl: But we're all your children.

Mother Eve: Then you wuz called. (Pauses while she gazes out over the landscape. Finally she turns her head with decision and repeats while nodding assuredly) Then you wuz called.

Girl: (...)

Closing scene: A haggard little garden in the foreground. The sun sets on the Euphrates in the background. A young woman is bent over, struggling to pull the last weed out of a long furrow. A young man stands next to her, wiping his brow with a white handkerchief. She stands up with the weed in her hand, takes a red handkerchief out of her back pocket, and wipes a smudge off the young man's cheek. She gazes at him for just a moment. And smiles.

The Radleys (redux)

We all, in a self-censoring way, believe we are Scout. We aspire to be Atticus - strong, noble, and godly - but realize we will always be children looking up to an ideal. But here's the hard truth: we are all just Boo Radleys. Nothing more, and nothing less. We are all forsaken, misshapen, scared, and scary. We hide out in the dark corners of our lives - coming out only when there is no one to truly see or recognize us - to drop small pieces of ourselves in the hollow of a tree. And in the end, if we do anything worthy or noble, it is to expose our ugly selves in order to carry another. This is love. This is that vulnerable, lonely, awkward power that alone coerces us out of our house at the end of the lane.

Jesus in the Valley

There is no pain that I have felt. No sorrow that I have had to endure. Mine is a blessed life. Ridiculous with overabundance. To believe that I have suffered anything is the grossest forsaking of love. There are those that suffer. There are those who do not live the lives that we live. May Jesus live in the valley of their hearts.

In about March 1946, less than a year after the end of the war, Ezra Taft Benson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, accompanied by Frederick W. Babbel, was assigned a special postwar tour of Europe for the express purpose of meeting with the Saints, assessing their needs, and providing assistance to them. Elder Benson and Brother Babbel later recounted, from a testimony they heard, the experience of a Church member who found herself in an area no longer controlled by the government under which she had resided.

She and her husband had lived an idyllic life in East Prussia. Then had come the second great world war within their lifetimes. Her beloved young husband was killed during the final days of the frightful battles in their homeland, leaving her alone to care for their four children.

The occupying forces determined that the Germans in East Prussia must go to Western Germany to seek a new home. The woman was German, and so it was necessary for her to go. The journey was over a thousand miles (1,600 km), and she had no way to accomplish it but on foot. She was allowed to take only such bare necessities as she could load into her small wooden-wheeled wagon. Besides her children and these meager possessions, she took with her a strong faith in God and in the gospel as revealed to the latter-day prophet Joseph Smith.

She and the children began the journey in late summer. Having neither food nor money among her few possessions, she was forced to gather a daily subsistence from the fields and forests along the way. She was constantly faced with dangers from panic-stricken refugees and plundering troops.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks to months, the temperatures dropped below freezing. Each day, she stumbled over the frozen ground, her smallest child—a baby—in her arms. Her three other children struggled along behind her, with the oldest—seven years old—pulling the tiny wooden wagon containing their belongings. Ragged and torn burlap was wrapped around their feet, providing the only protection for them, since their shoes had long since disintegrated. Their thin, tattered jackets covered their thin, tattered clothing, providing their only protection against the cold.

Soon the snows came, and the days and nights became a nightmare. In the evenings she and the children would try to find some kind of shelter—a barn or a shed—and would huddle together for warmth, with a few thin blankets from the wagon on top of them.

She constantly struggled to force from her mind overwhelming fears that they would perish before reaching their destination.

And then one morning the unthinkable happened. As she awakened, she felt a chill in her heart. The tiny form of her three-year-old daughter was cold and still, and she realized that death had claimed the child. Though overwhelmed with grief, she knew that she must take the other children and travel on. First, however, she used the only implement she had—a tablespoon—to dig a grave in the frozen ground for her tiny, precious child.

Death, however, was to be her companion again and again on the journey. Her seven-year-old son died, either from starvation or from freezing or both. Again her only shovel was the tablespoon, and again she dug hour after hour to lay his mortal remains gently into the earth. Next, her five-year-old son died, and again she used her tablespoon as a shovel.

Her despair was all consuming. She had only her tiny baby daughter left, and the poor thing was failing. Finally, as she was reaching the end of her journey, the baby died in her arms. The spoon was gone now, so hour after hour she dug a grave in the frozen earth with her bare fingers. Her grief became unbearable. How could she possibly be kneeling in the snow at the graveside of her last child? She had lost her husband and all her children. She had given up her earthly goods, her home, and even her homeland.

In this moment of overwhelming sorrow and complete bewilderment, she felt her heart would literally break. In despair she contemplated how she might end her own life, as so many of her fellow countrymen were doing. How easy it would be to jump off a nearby bridge, she thought, or to throw herself in front of an oncoming train.

And then, as these thoughts assailed her, something within her said, “Get down on your knees and pray.” She ignored the prompting until she could resist it no longer. She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life:

“Dear Heavenly Father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left—except my faith in Thee. I feel, Father, amidst the desolation of my soul, an overwhelming gratitude for the atoning sacrifice of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. I cannot express adequately my love for Him. I know that because He suffered and died, I shall live again with my family; that because He broke the chains of death, I shall see my children again and will have the joy of raising them. Though I do not at this moment wish to live, I will do so, that we may be reunited as a family and return—together—to Thee.”

"Together - to Thee." This is the prayer. Of us all.

JS Bach

Whenever I listen to Bach I feel like I'm putting math inside of me. I've posted the full Suite No. 1 for Cello on the right of this page. See if it doesn't send your mind racing through the periodic table of elements. Or at very least a trip down integer alley.

PS - Mr. Bach deserves a more thorough treatment then this skimpy post. I will likely be adding to it in the next few days when I get a minute.