The English Geek

Why I Run in Running Clothes

We Mormons have been accused of being a peculiar people. As I quite often feel more like a convert to my religion, as opposed to a person born into it, these oddities seem glaringly odd to me sometimes, too. (Like, honestly. Last week I found myself standing in front of the new Starbucks at our in-the-middle-of-a-remodel Target, sniffing deeply and snuffling longingly and thinking...really? Coffee? We can't drink coffee? And trust me: that's not the first time I've had that thought.) One of my LDS oddities that I've been thinking about lately is modesty.

We are encouraged to dress modestly. In general my take on me dressing modestly involves the length of my skirts and shorts, the cut of my shirts (including both the bust and the sleeve width), and the general, over all feel of my outfit. My interpretation of "modest" revolves mostly around the concept of elegance. I don't want to dress too young, or too skimpy or too...what's the opposite of elegant? I do, however, believe that I can dress modestly without wearing a sack. Maybe it is shallow of me—and honestly, I'm not afraid to leave my house in sweats and a t-shirt and a slumpy long sweater—but I do take pleasure from what I wear. My inner rebellious self somethings thinks really? sleeveless? No one can see our shoulders? but in general I stay firmly on The Plan. I like pretty, I like black, I like the style I've developed. Sweats included.

Except, I still wear running clothes when I go running. I don't wear those tiny running shorts that other girls can get away with. (Partly this is because my thighs rub together too fiercly to wear them, but it's mostly because I wouldn't feel comfortable with my butt nearly hanging out.) I don't hit the road without covering up my sports bra. But, I do wear singlets. I wear shorts that are shorter than my knees. I wear tank tops and running skirts.

And this bothers some people.

(I know it bothers some people because they have told me it bothers them. "You shouldn't run in that shirt" or "I think your running shorts are immodest" are actual real live words people have said to me.)

This topic has been on my mind since last week, when I was leaving my house for a run. It was a glorious afternoon—just warm enough for a running tank and one of my favorite running skirts. I left the house, ready to sweat and maybe get a little dusty and certainly come back red-faced as I am not one of those graceful runners who finish their workouts looking like they've just finished getting a facial, feeling pretty. Just as I turned the corner to leave my neighborhood, a neighbor turned his vehicle onto my street—and he gave me that look. The one I am completely familiar with. The one that means you are dressed immodestly.

And let me tell you: I argued with that neighbor (someone I consider to be a friend) in my head for all of my five (very hilly!) miles. I told him about my right to choose. I told him that my running outfit was just that, running clothes purchased from the workout-clothes section. I argued that running in pants and a T when it's scorching outside is absolutely miserable. I pointed out that swimmers exercise in swim suits (even the Mormon ones!) so it stands that runners can wear running clothes. He argued back (in my head) that there are running clothes and then there are running clothes. 

So then I got personal. I pointed out (in my head) that there are some things in my life that make me completely unhappy and stressed out in ways he has no concept of. And that I am prone to letting my little black raincloud sluice away my attempts at being happy or hopeful or optimistic. And that I am starting to have anxiety attacks on a regular basis. But running? Running helps me keep those things at bay. Running helps me keep the unhappinesses in perspective and the little black raincloud from turning into a hurricane and the anxiety from needing medication.

But I can also be honest: physical and mental health aren't the only reasons I like running. I like wearing cute running clothes. They make me happy. They make me excited to get out the door. Without cute running clothes I would be far less motivated to run. Call me selfish if you need to, or vain, or even just downright lame. That's OK. I know myself and my life and my reactions to it well enough: if I ran in Mormon-modest running clothes I wouldn't want to run as much. If I didn't run as much I would eventually find myself rocking on the floor in a dark closet somewhere, contemplating slitting my wrists.

"If you had enough faith to be obedient," my neighbor volleyed back (in my head), "it could overcome all of those things."

A point I cannot refute.

Despite this imaginary discussion with my neighbor (for whom I hold no hard feelings as this whole idea was discussed in my head), and my knowledge that it's my weakness that's the problem here, I'm not going to abandon my favorite running clothes. Because imaginary arguments aside, I need to keep myself sane and strong for my kids. And for myself. Plus there's the fact that I still get to chose, and my choice is that I am OK. My shorts aren't tiny. My belly isn't exposed. My tank tops have thick straps.

Perhaps my idea of modesty is different from the rest of my neighbors'. After all, I also buy and wear tankinis instead of one-piece swimsuits. When Haley was little I let her wear sundresses without a shirt underneath. I am also pretty firm in telling my sons that they are responsible for the contents of their thoughts, not the girl in skinny jeans. (Because saying "girls should dress modest so that boys can control their thoughts" seems like an inch away from saying "it's your fault I raped you because you wore that short skirt.")  I talk to Haley, too, about modesty. We don't always agree, quite frankly. Sometimes my ideas feel too prescriptive too her. I just keep trying but deep down I know: the style of clothes she settles on in her adult world might be sort-of influenced by me, but in the end she gets to choose. Just like I get to choose.

Besides. What does "modest" mean, anyway? It's very first dictionary definition has nothing to do with clothes, but with decorum: "freedom from conceit or vanity." Modesty, in the end, shouldn't be about hem lengths or exposed shoulders. It should be about humility. I don't run in running clothes out of conceit—I don't love my running skirts because of what I think they might make someone else think about me. I run in them because they (ultimately) help me to be happy. Or happier than I would be otherwise. Self-importance and showing off have nothing to do with my running-clothes choices. Comfort, functionality, and cuteness do. (As well as pockets, but that's an entirely other rant.) Flaunting my knees and elbows might be immodest, but so is flaunting your apparent superior righteousness.

Other than that familiar look, I have no idea what my neighbor really thinks of my running attire. Most of me doesn't care. Most of me thinks about stones and glass houses and judging not. If you don't like what I'm wearing, I almost said to my in-my-head neighbor, then don't look at me. Instead I said don't judge me for sinning differently than you sin to his silent smugness (in my head). And that made his smugness slide away. In fact, he was at last, blessedly, gone. Out of my head  He left me to run in peace—even in my tank top and skirt.

(For more ideas about Mormons and modestly, check out these  posts written by people whom I've never met but whose opinions struck me as, well, interesting.)

My Father's Daffodils

For as long as I have been an aunt, my family has had the tradition of an Easter egg hunt in my mom's backyard on Easter Sunday. Because we tend to enjoy food, we also eat dinner together. As my oldest niece was born when I was 15 or 16, we've been doing this for a long, long time. Certain groupings of experiences have come and gone: the times when the amount of girls vastly outnumbered the boys, the year when we had three babies (this was Haley's first Easter), the times when the amount of boys vastly outnumbered the girls, the year we added cute little baskets to the hunt. Snowy Easters or bright, perfect ones; plenty of new spring outfits admired and photos snapped and strawberry-based desserts devoured

Since Kayci (the oldest niece) got married the year Ben and Kaleb (the youngest grandsons) were born, we didn't have an Easter with every one of my parents' grandchildren before the in-laws started being added. But every year, part of our tradition has been to get all the kids together for an Easter photo. We did some with Grandma and Grandpa and some without. Sometimes we took them in the front yard, sometimes in the back; sometimes, on snowy Easters, on the porch or inside, on the couch.

And for so many of those Easter Sundays, my dad was there, smiling, telling his slightly off-color jokes to Kendell, helping to hide the eggs full of candy. He and I would always talk about spring flowers, which ones were blooming, how the lilac bush was coming along, what the name of those tiny little purple flowers blooming by his antique wagon wheel might be. (He never seemed to remember exactly.) One Easter he played baseball with Nathan, who was just 18 months old. He was quite but still an essential part of the experience. Until he couldn't be any longer. Until silence took him away.

This year, for a variety of reasons, we had our Easter Sunday party on Palm Sunday instead. Some family drama meant that some of the nieces and nephews didn't come. We only had five kids to hunt eggs: my grand-niece Oakley, who is almost one; my two youngest and Becky's two boys. It was cold today, grey and blustery, and none of my father's daffodils were blooming yet. I felt heartsore, missing him, missing the years when all the grandkids were still little, the days when my knowledge was not yet so deeply felt and I thought that things would stay the way they were forever.

"Maybe this will be the last Easter party," my mom, who would like to sell her house and move into something smaller, said to me, while we were waiting for the men to hide the eggs. (It's tradition.) It felt like the last to me. Or maybe the one after the one that should have been the last. I don't know. When do you acknowledge that the family you have might be too large and diverse to continue insisting on pliability and similarity? When do you find that your own small family is enough? When do the edges snap away?

I went out to the front porch of my childhood home, scene of myriad memorable events. I looked up at the trees that were my height when Dad planted them, and then down at his flowerbeds, which were littered with little purple grape hyacinths. I talked to my sisters; I laughed. I went to the backyard and watched the small group hunt for their candy-filled eggs, revisiting the same hiding places the older generation had long ago discovered. When there were only a few eggs left, I walked with Kaleb, trying to help him find just one more treasure.

But it was me who found a treasure, just for a whisper of a moment. I thought of the blooming purple flowers, of the tulips with their green hands still shut tight and the lilac bush just barely covered in pale green leaves. I thought of all that has passed away. And I felt him there, my daddy, in the backyard that he loved and nurtured. Even though it's weedy now, and the swing set is knocked down and rusting. Even though the daffodils weren't blooming yet. He was there with me, just for a moment. He was there because he made it. He's gone but his grandkids still race around the beautiful space he made. He's gone but his grape hyacinths are still spattering the soil with lavender quiet. He's gone, but the trees he planted rustled in the wind and the flowers he planted worked their way towards blooming and somehow all the changes, the edges slowly breaking off, felt OK. Felt like how things just naturally progress. And they felt OK because of that moment. Because he made it OK.

Something moved away from me then. Perhaps it was the expectation that things will ever be the same. Maybe it won't be the last Easter party. But it will be the last time I expect it to bring me the same bright joy. It will have its own sadness, no matter where we have the party. And next Sunday, when it is Easter, I will only have my own children around me. Make it good, the wind whispered to me in my father's voice. Make it your own.

I will, Dad. I will.

a Night of Omens and (possibly) Answers

Since the events that transpired to create this post happened, I have been in a dark place in my soul. I have doubted my decisions, my relationships, my faith. I had a dark moment on a dark night sitting alone on a cold bench in a park, so late at night that the lights had gone out.

I want to believe what I have believed. I want to believe what others have said about my choices. I want to believe, again, that I am forging a good life. But I don’t know how to do that, here in the dark alone. And I don’t know how to convey what I believe to the people who need to believe it too.

So. I’m in this dark spot.

I can’t really talk about it, because talking induces hysteria. The kind of tears that feel like a heart attack. Putting it into spoken words, the kind with sound waves, makes it feel even more real.

So I’ve written a lot in my journal. I’ve fasted for myself (not something I ever do). I’ve thought and relived and tried to see things from an objective perspective.

I’ve spent a lot of time crying in the bathtub.

Two weeks ago, my mom asked me to come to her church’s birthday dinner. Some sort of writers or artists were coming to speak—she was vague on the details—and she thought it would be fun if I came because, you know, my writerly ambitions. And while I usually feel guilty about doing things in the evening on nights when I’m not working, something told me I should go.

So I did, despite the fact that I argued with Kendell about it and I argued with Haley about it and there was a big meltdown just before I left and I left late and then I had to speed down the freeway (which is a brave thing to do in Utah right now, considering all the freeway construction). I went, taking my darkness with me and my hope that the something telling me to go was right.

When I got off the freeway and turned east towards Springville where my mom lives, I gasped. The moon was rising, very close to full, right in the valley between two mountains. A sheet of clouds hung in the lower part of the valley, so it looked like the bottom quarter of the moon had been torn off. The rest of it, though, looked enormous—you know how it looks when it first rises?

If I wasn’t late and the road wasn’t so congested, I would have stopped and taken a photo of it, even though I’m certain that my camera phone couldn’t begin to capture how that moon made me feel. A little bit of light.

I rushed to my mom’s, picked her up, and drove to the church. She was still a little bit vague on the details of who was speaking, but as I listened to the conversations around me, I picked it up: the painter Liz Lemon Swindle, who does religious paintings, and Susan Easton Black, who is a church historian and a professor at BYU. She also writes the books that tell the story behind Swindle’s paintings.

And it just so happened that my mom and I ended up sitting at the very same table as these two women.

As I tend to do when I am around successful people, I clammed up. I wanted to talk to them both, gush my admiration and ask them for advice and learn their secrets, but mostly I just listened and ate chicken salad.

I loved listening to Liz Lemon Swindle speak about her art. As art is something I am immensely fond of—partly because my grandpa, Curtis Allman, was an artist—but not anything I can do with any resemblance to actual art, I find artists to be amazing people. The translation between the idea and the finished painting—it is a source of magic I think.

But the talk I needed to hear, the one I didn’t know I came to the meeting for, was Susan Easton Black’s. She spoke of a time in her life when she found herself in bed, having given up trying to live any sort of real life, and how a sort-of acquaintance helped her get out of bed, wash her sheets, and move forward. "You just have to find your talents and then do something with them," the friend told her, and so that is what she did. She took her talent of being able to remember the details of anything she read, and she became a teacher of church history. She wrote books with her knowledge, and shared what she knew. She made a life for herself by building up her talent.

Talent.

That word came up several times in these two talks. Over and over, in fact. By the end it was almost the only word I could hear: talent. Find your talent. Build upon it. Move forward by using your talent. Build a life based on your talent.

What is my talent? I thought. And what I want the answer to be is this: writing.

What have I done with my talent? I asked myself. Focused all of my education around it. Taught it to high school students. Used it to share my kids’ stories. Taught courses on it to scrapbookers around the world. Put down my thoughts about books so that other people could discover the good ones, too.

But never what I really, really wanted to use it for, ever since I was 16 and listened to a popular girl in my sophomore English class read her poems out loud and knew: my poems were better than hers even if every boy in the school adored her. Writing books that other people might read: that is what I have wanted to use my talent for.

But I got married young. And then I had things like a mortgage and health insurance to pay for. I had babies. I finished school. I tried to be a good wife and mom. I suffered through Kendell’s unemployment, went back to school, became a teacher. Became a librarian. And throughout most of those years I kept my writing ambitions a sort of secret. I kept my Madeline L’Engle moment in my head: once my kids were all in school, it would be my time to write.

And here I am: all my kids are in school. It is the time my writing has been waiting for. But here I am: in the dark. Unsure. Maybe all those years were simply my way of laying in bed, ignoring the world and trying to sleep through my life? Maybe my Madeline L’Engle moment was only an excuse for me to not try? Because trying? Trying means failing. If I never try to be a writer, if I only talk about it, then I will still have the dream in front of me. By not starting I don’t have to ever confront failing.

Because that is the hitch that all my darkness spins around: is writing really my talent? Am I good and strong and determined enough to take the road I want to take? Is it selfish of me to even try, when my kids still need so much from me, both emotionally, yes, but also financially.

I thought, and I listened to Susan Easton Black’s story, and I thought some more, and soon the only word I heard was that one: talent.

A fragment of a Mary Oliver poem skipped into my thoughts:

little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

(I am a mother and a wife and a friend and an employee. But I am also myself, and no one else can save my life but me.)

And of course the scripture from Matthew:

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

(Have I waited too long? Did I bury instead of build upon? That unprofitable servant who buried his talent didn’t just go away. He was cast into outer darkness, with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Did I only once have the ability to write?)

And an idea from Borges:

"like every writer, he measured other men’s virtues by what they had accomplished, yet asked that other men measure him by what he planned someday to do."

(Can I only talk and dream about it?)

And that word:

talent
talent
talent.

And then the talks were over. I told them both how much I appreciated their words, my own syllables hollow. Neither one of them could know the story behind my appreciation. Because it felt like there was an answer here, somehow. An answer I still don’t know how to make be the answer. Because I have to believe in the answer so much that the other people who don’t believe in this answer are converted to it. And I have to be good enough to make it the answer. And I don’t know how to move from what I planned to someday do to actually doing it.

But it still felt like an answer somehow.

After I dropped my mom back at home and started the rush for home (Haley needed the car), I thought. I thought out loud—a sort of a prayer. I drove the long way home (despite Haley needing the car). And when I was out on the road that runs between towns, a road tucked right up against the foothills, I looked across the lake and I saw a shooting star.

Then I stopped my talking. I didn’t think, really. I just drove, to the end of my night which was book-ended by celestial lights, a sort of punctuation to the message I still don’t properly understand but know, somehow, is the one I needed to hear.

I confess: I am still in the dark. I am subsisting on shaky faith, doubt, and self-flagellation. But the dark is not so dark, quite. It is that word—talent—which is a light I can almost, almost see. And perhaps if I keep moving forward I will catch up to it.

God is in the Trees.

I read Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam & Evewith my SDBBE girls. The cover is this one:

and we've discussed who's face that is in the tree. Since when the book opens, Eve has Adam up a tree—he's trying to get away from her because he thinks she talks too much—one of the suggestions was that it was Adam's face.

But the more I think about the story, the more I think it is God's face, watching Adam and Eve as they begin to figure out the world. I think His gaze is compassionate and, perhaps, he is also trying to keep his laughter hidden, because they are pretty funny.

Twain intended it to be a humorous book, but I confess: I don't always appreciate humor. This personality trait has occasioned more than one person to look sideways at me when I'm just sort of, you know, sitting through a funny movie, not really laughing much while said person is guffawing his head off. I've been accused of being a stick in the mud. I don't really know what is wrong with me—it's not that I don't like to laugh. Humor just isn't my favorite genre.

Despite that, I did enjoy this book and it did make me laugh, especially Eve's observations about language. Sometimes the humor made me roll my eyes. Sometimes it annoyed me. And as the end neared, I felt like the humor lessened the story somehow. I wanted to get deeper inside the characters than ridiculosity was allowing me. As the story progresses, Eve learns things, and she has a sort of wisdom born of her innocence, but she's still childlike.

Even though, when she and Adam eat the apple, they are cast out from the garden and death enters the world (the tigers, which were previously strawberry eaters, start eating the horses), Adam and Eve's knowledge doesn't come as a flood. They still learn slowly and by experiments they don't exactly understand. Eve especially loves figuring things out. She believes she was made "to search out the secrets of this wonderful world. . . . I think think there are many things to learn yet—I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast, I think they will last weeks and weeks." Despite her childlike innocence, she loves learning.

But when death enters their intimate part of the world—when Abel dies at Cain's hand—this is when she learns the bitter part of knowledge. Until Abel dies—until days after his death, when Eve finally realizes that this, this cold sleeping body that won't awaken is death—she is trying to gain knowledge. After she knows death, she has obtained knowledge, wisdom, and the sorrow that comes from both.

I think of her character in the story, explaining what she knows about a thing as basic as air:

By a series of experiments we had long ago arrived at the conclusion that atmospheric air consisted of water in invisible suspension; also that the components of water were hydrogen and oxygen, the proportion of two parts of the former to one of the latter and expressible by the symbol H₂O. My discovery revealed the fact that there was still another ingredient: milk. We enlarged the symbol to H₂OM.

(On the same page we are told that Adam has figured out that 6 times 9 are 27, and that cows make milk by condensing it from the air through their skin.)

They almost  have things figured out. They have the right pieces, hydrogen and oxygen, 6 and 9. They just don't know how to fit their pieces of knowledge together. They draw completely wrong assumptions from their experiences.

Contrast that to the Eve we meet after Abel's death. She doesn't say this, but I realized it: she didn't only lose Abel. She lost Cain, too. That wide variance of bitterness that knowledge brings us! This knowledge changes her; she is no longer innocent because her knowledge is no longer theoretical. It is personal.

And she cannot understand it.

She has these pieces of knowledge she has gained from her experiences. Death has entered the world. Her first son killed her second son. God does not stop bad things from happening. Sorrow doesn't go away. But she doesn't know how to understand the pieces, what they mean, how they fit together. What is being made.

They drove us from the garden with their swords of flame, the fierce cherubim. And what had we done? . . . We did not know right from wrong—how should we know? We could not, without the Moral Sense? . . . But to say to us poor ignorant children words which we could not understand and then punish us because we did not do as we were told—ah, how can that be justified? We knew no more then than this littlest child of mine knows now with its four years—oh, not so much, I think. Would I say to it, "If thou touchest this bread I will overwhelm thee with unimaginable disaster, even to the dissolution of thy corporeal elements," and when it took the bread and smiled up in my face, thinking no harm, not understanding those strange words, would I take advantage of its innocence and strike it down with the mother-hand it trusted? Whoso knoweth the mother-heart, let him judge if I would do that thing.

This is the Eve I wanted to know. I wanted to know her suffering, not because I want her to suffer but because everyone suffers. What do we do with the suffering? How do we put the pieces of our knowledge into a meaning we can grasp? Eve can't see the meaning within her sorrows. She questions God and His motivations, and this makes me feel better about my own questions, my own doubts and failures at understanding. Her conclusion, unspoken but suggested in her words, is that God is unfair to do what He did.

It is just the same as her conclusion about the milk in the atmosphere. She has knowledge but cannot see from God's perspective. She can only see from her own and so arriving at the real conclusion is difficult. Eve is not sitting with God in the tree. None of us are. We only have our pieces of knowledge gained from our experiences, and we stumble. We puzzle and recalculate and leave the box of pieces in dark corners when they seem impossible to assemble. We cannot always make sense of them.

This, I believe, is universal to all of us, not just Eve. This world, the one with death and sorrow and betrayal and unemployment and poverty and medical emergencies, tries to teach us. It gives us the pieces. But since we're all down on the ground, living our lives instead of looking at them, we can't always comprehend the knowledge we are gaining. It comes slowly. We don't always understand.

But neither did Eve. and I think God, looking down from his tree, was not offended by her questions. I think he knew she just didn't understand yet. At least, that is what I hope, both for Eve and for myself. Because it is so easy for me to make the wrong assumptions. To assume that my sorrows happen only as punishments, for example, and that if I were a better person I would have fewer. I don't quite have God's perspective yet. But, like Eve, I am doing what I can while I live to figure things out.

Bookended by Hope

A few years ago, we added the tradition of reading the nativity story to our Christmas Eve festivities. We read Luke 2:1-19, because the sentence "And Mary kept these things, and pondered them in her heart" seems like a good stopping point. Plus that's usually all the sitting-still-for-scriptures my excited children can handle.

But when I read the Christmas story on my own, I like to start with Zacharias and Elisabeth in chapter 1 and finish with Simeon at chapter 2 verse 35. That is because these two stories neatly bookend the nativity story with hope. The scriptures don't say specifically that Elisabeth hoped for a child. But I think her response when she discovers her miraculous pregnancy—"the Lord has taken away my reproach"—speaks something of her heart. So much can be pinned on that word reproach. Not having a child felt like a punishment, and would only feel that way if she desired that baby. It speaks to years, I imagine, of Elisabeth hoping and praying and hoping more, of watching other women have baby after baby, and wondering why not me? That looking around and wanting what others seem to have effortlessly: this is a hard, troublesome thing that can chip away at faith. And yet, they were both (because I think Zacharias's questioning of the angel how this miracle might come to pass is just as telling of his desires as Elisabeth's use of "reproach" is) righteous and blameless.

And then, in the temple with the infant Christ, there is Simeon. He was a righteous man who was promised he would see Christ in the flesh before he died—and then waited nearly all his life until this promise happened. And, again, I think his words speak louder than their syllables, because when he comes to the temple that day, and sees the infant Christ, he says "now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." He doesn't want to depart in joy (although he obviously felt it) or in humility (although he must have felt humbled by this great experience) or even in thanksgiving (because think! think how thankful he must have felt). No—now, having seen Christ, he is given the thing he has waited and hoped for for so many decades, and at that moment what he feels, at last, is peace. I imagine Simeon as someone similar to Zacharias and Elisabeth. Living his life, trying to do good and make the right choices, but always wondering: when? why do I have to wait? will it ever happen? was I only imagining? or perhaps I am not righteous enough? Those are not always peaceful emotions. Waiting in hope is a bittersweet thing. And yet, he managed it, because his faith was sure enough that he was able to be in the temple at the right time.

As the scripture continues---this is a sword that pierces my own soul. I love the example that Simeon, Elisabeth, and Zacharais set. They were human and imperfect and yet they also held on to their hope long enough to receive the fulfillment of those hopes. They did not let bitterness overcome sweetness. They went forward without understanding why their hopes were not yet fulfilled. And then the great miracle happened, and I will not say that it is solely the birth of Christ. The fulfillment of their hopes and the receipt of understanding is a great miracle, too, just on the small, intimate level.

This pierces my soul because it is so easy for me to slip into the pool of my own bitterness, where I sink into blackness with all the weight that hope brings. (I am not always sure that Emily D. was right; hope isn't a thing, always, with feathers but with chains that keep you from letting go of the unattainable.) It is easy for me to grow jaded, to be filled with the certainty that the unfulfilled hopes I carry have gone unfulfilled because I am not worthy of their fulfillment. To get lost in comparison—if only I were as good as this person I would be granted this hope. As if the world were one great round of sibling rivalry.

And it pierces me because it reminds me not to give up hoping. And it reminds me that perhaps the hope can be pinned not to the unfulfilled desire itself, but to an understanding. Elisabeth and Simeon, after all their long years of hoping, were each given their desire. I don't think that will happen with all of my own long-longed for wishes. But they were also given understanding. This is the sword that lifts up as it pierces, letting me move forward in faith toward my own future understanding.

Those stories of long-endured hope finally fulfilled? They move me and mean as much as the one of Christ's birth. They help me hold on when hope feels like a burden. And, as bookends to the nativity, they bring me to the remembrance that it all hinges on faith in Christ.

why I AM a Christian

I suppose it's inevitable that when one of the main Republican presidential candidates is a Mormon, the LDS faith is going to start appearing more frequently in the news and public discussion. Honestly, I find this refreshing, because there are so many myths that surround our beliefs.

Of course, the frustrating part is that somehow it seems that all the myths are being reinforced rather than explained. The polygamy and the horns and the magic underwear—none of these strangling of LDS beliefs bugs me more than the idea that we're not Christians.

Take this article, which discusses some ideas tossed out by Bill Maher. He accuses us Mormons as being "too quick to gloss over the differences between being Christian and being Mormon." Hmmmm. As I don't think there is a difference, let's examine the idea.

What does the word "Christian" mean, anyway? If you look it up in the OED (arguably the definitive expert on words and what they mean) you'll read that Christianity is "The religion of Christ; the Christian faith; the system of doctrines and precepts taught by Christ and his apostles."

Or, try looking at the word from the word's structure: "Christ" refers to Jesus Christ, of course, and "ian" is a suffix which means "from, related to, or like (adjective); one from, belonging to, relating to, or like (noun)." So, strictly speaking about the structure, a Christian is a person who is from, related to, like, or belongs to Christ.

But maybe that's not official enough. How about the explanation of the history of the word "Christian," this time from The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church:

"Originally applied to followers of Christ by outsiders, being first used in Acts 11:26"

"the official Roman designation of members of the Catholic Church"

St. Ignatius of Antioch says "let me not merely be called 'Christian' but be found one."

"As the name for which the martyrs suffered and as containing the name of Christ, the term easily came to fill the obvious need for a proper name by which the church could designate itself as distinct from Jews and pagans (and later from Muslims) rather than the earlier term 'brethren,' 'disciples,' and 'believers.'"

OK. So, if we look at it with a wider historical perspective, perhaps the only real Christians are Catholics.

I wonder if that bugs the Baptists?

Now, let me say this: I know my church has its faults. Quite often its people are judgmental. I sometimes feel stifled by its restraints and have been known to roll my eyes in the face of some of the more ridiculous (to me) statements other members make.

But I think that speaks more about me than to my religion. And let's be honest here. Being a Christian doesn't make you perfect. (Coincidentally, none of the definitions or histories suggest perfection either.)

Being a Christian simply means that you believe in and try to follow the example of Christ.

I believe with all my heart that everything else is just dressing. No matter what the details of your demonination are, no matter the rituals or the oddities or the problems or the absolute pristine moments of spiritual connection, if you believe in Christ, you are a Christian.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German philosopher whose attempts to reconcile the chasm he saw between Orthodox Christians and the opinions of the Englightement led him to be named "the father of modern liberal theology," gives a helpful definition for Christianity:

"A monotheistic faith . . . essentially distinguished from other such faiths by the fact that in it everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth."

All the definitions and the histories point to the same thing: Christianity is a religion founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Those who say that Mormons aren't Christians are, quite simply, wrong. This is because of one essential fact: we believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus Christ.

And I know all the arguments. That it's not really Christ but Joseph Smith we worship. (Incorrect. This is like saying Catholics aren't Christians because they believe other people besides Christ were also saints.) Or we don't believe in the Bible. (We do; we just happen to also believe that other scriptures exist as well as, in addition to, including the Bible.) Or that we think our underwear is magic. (We don't. Hasn't anyone ever heard of symbolism?) Whatever the trappings of our faith, you can trace each and every one of them back to Christ. Everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth. Isn't that what Catholics believe? And the Protestants and the Presbeterians and the Lutherans?

So! To Bill Maher I say: you're wrong. To Robert Jeffress and Rick Perry I say the same thing. You're wrong. Your statements aren't made out of research or out of any facts, but out of stupidity and fear and downright arrogance. Who made you God and gave you the power to determine someone's Christianity?

We Mormons are Christians because we believe in Christ. We're Christians because what we do always comes back to that essential fact: we believe in Christ.

But here's a little gospel-according-to-Amy: I don't think anyone, let alone a politician or a political commentator, gets to say who is a Christian and who is not. My church leaders or yours cannot do it. Only an individual and her maker know that. No one else but me gets to say how Christian I am. And while I'm certain that my saying this in my tiny little corner of the Internet will make no difference to the world at large, it does make a difference to me:

I believe in Christ.

why I AM a Christian

I suppose it's inevitable that when one of the main Republican presidential candidates is a Mormon, the LDS faith is going to start appearing more frequently in the news and public discussion. Honestly, I find this refreshing, because there are so many myths that surround our beliefs.

Of course, the frustrating part is that somehow it seems that all the myths are being reinforced rather than explained. The polygamy and the horns and the magic underwear—none of these strangling of LDS beliefs bugs me more than the idea that we're not Christians.

Take this article, which discusses some ideas tossed out by Bill Maher. He accuses us Mormons as being "too quick to gloss over the differences between being Christian and being Mormon." Hmmmm. As I don't think there is a difference, let's examine the idea.

What does the word "Christian" mean, anyway? If you look it up in the OED (arguably the definitive expert on words and what they mean) you'll read that Christianity is "The religion of Christ; the Christian faith; the system of doctrines and precepts taught by Christ and his apostles."

Or, try looking at the word from the word's structure: "Christ" refers to Jesus Christ, of course, and "ian" is a suffix which means "from, related to, or like (adjective); one from, belonging to, relating to, or like (noun)." So, strictly speaking about the structure, a Christian is a person who is from, related to, like, or belongs to Christ.

But maybe that's not official enough. How about the explanation of the history of the word "Christian," this time from The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church:

"Originally applied to followers of Christ by outsiders, being first used in Acts 11:26"

"the official Roman designation of members of the Catholic Church"

St. Ignatius of Antioch says "let me not merely be called 'Christian' but be found one."

"As the name for which the martyrs suffered and as containing the name of Christ, the term easily came to fill the obvious need for a proper name by which the church could designate itself as distinct from Jews and pagans (and later from Muslims) rather than the earlier term 'brethren,' 'disciples,' and 'believers.'"

OK. So, if we look at it with a wider historical perspective, perhaps the only real Christians are Catholics.

I wonder if that bugs the Baptists?

Now, let me say this: I know my church has its faults. Quite often its people are judgmental. I sometimes feel stifled by its restraints and have been known to roll my eyes in the face of some of the more ridiculous (to me) statements other members make.

But I think that speaks more about me than to my religion. And let's be honest here. Being a Christian doesn't make you perfect. (Coincidentally, none of the definitions or histories suggest perfection either.)

Being a Christian simply means that you believe in and try to follow the example of Christ.

I believe with all my heart that everything else is just dressing. No matter what the details of your demonination are, no matter the rituals or the oddities or the problems or the absolute pristine moments of spiritual connection, if you believe in Christ, you are a Christian.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German philosopher whose attempts to reconcile the chasm he saw between Orthodox Christians and the opinions of the Englightement led him to be named "the father of modern liberal theology," gives a helpful definition for Christianity:

"A monotheistic faith . . . essentially distinguished from other such faiths by the fact that in it everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth."

All the definitions and the histories point to the same thing: Christianity is a religion founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Those who say that Mormons aren't Christians are, quite simply, wrong. This is because of one essential fact: we believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus Christ.

And I know all the arguments. That it's not really Christ but Joseph Smith we worship. (Incorrect. This is like saying Catholics aren't Christians because they believe other people besides Christ were also saints.) Or we don't believe in the Bible. (We do; we just happen to also believe that other scriptures exist as well as, in addition to, including the Bible.) Or that we think our underwear is magic. (We don't. Hasn't anyone ever heard of symbolism?) Whatever the trappings of our faith, you can trace each and every one of them back to Christ. Everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth. Isn't that what Catholics believe? And the Protestants and the Presbeterians and the Lutherans?

So! To Bill Maher I say: you're wrong. To Robert Jeffress and Rick Perry I say the same thing. You're wrong. Your statements aren't made out of research or out of any facts, but out of stupidity and fear and downright arrogance. Who made you God and gave you the power to determine someone's Christianity?

We Mormons are Christians because we believe in Christ. We're Christians because what we do always comes back to that essential fact: we believe in Christ.

But here's a little gospel-according-to-Amy: I don't think anyone, let alone a politician or a political commentator, gets to say who is a Christian and who is not. My church leaders or yours cannot do it. Only an individual and her maker know that. No one else but me gets to say how Christian I am. And while I'm certain that my saying this in my tiny little corner of the Internet will make no difference to the world at large, it does make a difference to me:

I believe in Christ.

the touch of an old friend's hand

In church today, we discussed life after death. You would think, so soon after my dad's death, this lesson would have been a comfort to me, reminding me of the beliefs I cling to. But somehow it was too much too soon. Or not enough. Before the lesson even started, when I read the day's topic, I thought I should probably go out. But I was sitting next to an older woman, someone I admire and adore, but who has a hard time shifting around, and I didn't want her to have to rustle her legs aside so I could get past, so I stayed put.

Stories and testimonies were shared, and at first I was OK. But it built up in me. What was said and written isn't enough for me. Listening to people talk so serenely and surely about their experiences brought back my reocurring image of Dad, the one that is an amalgam of my coffin-viewing panic attack and the sight of his coffin at the cemetary. I keep coming back to a disconnect: where I know his body is, what I don't know about the location of his soul. The things the scriptures don't tell us: what paradise looks like, and what it feels like to be there, and how we live. I cannot picture where he is, other than in the dark, cold grave.

The lesson touched me, but it didn't comfort me. It brought me back to the place I found a few minutes after he had passed, when I went outside and sat in Dad's backyard and looked at the trees he'd planted, scarred, nurtured, pruned, neglected, cultivated, watered. Still growing, even though he was gone; a strange sort of peace that dripped sorrow. People die. I longed for him to go, to be free of the prison his mind was, but now he is gone it is different sort of gone than I expected.

This is, perhaps, a weakness of my faith. If I had a stronger testimony, I perhaps would be able to find peace with what we do know. Or, perhaps it is just a part of me that hasn't had a chance to learn and to grow yet. This limping along of grief is, perhaps, also a thing to cultivate, like the trees were before they grew. A seed, of sorts.

I couldn't help it: I started crying, there in the Relief Society meeting. Those deep, heaving sobs, the ugly ones that keening was invented for, and yet I was trying to be quiet, to not disturb anyone, and it was like swallowing something too large and sharp and hard for my throat, my whole body absorbing that thing I couldn't say and only letting a few tears escape.

Then I felt something: a friend I didn't notice sitting behind me put her hand on my shoulder. She patted and squeezed briefly and I knew she saw and I knew it was ok, and then the ugly racking subsided in my body and flooded out in silent tears that started to water something.

Laughing in the Face of Death

On the morning that Dad died, after the gentle hospice worker had come and gone, and the young undertakers had bundled him in their strange covering (thick, malleable plastic on one side, cotton pieced quilt on the other), loaded him into a minivan, and took him away, my sisters, mom and I found ourselves ravenous. As if the process of him dying fueled our innate hunger, our human response to nurture life with food.

So we went to breakfast.

While we were waiting for the pancakes, eggs, toast, biscuits, and immense amount of bacon we'd ordered, Becky realized that she hadn't received a response from one of our nieces, whom she'd texted with the news of Dad's passing. An awful thought crept into my head: what if she'd sent the text to the wrong cell phone number, so that niece ended up feeling bad that we hadn't told her? But then I thought about some unknown person—the one whose cell phone she accidentally used—receiving her gentle text: 
          Grandpa passed away at 6:20 this morning. He went peacefully and we were all with him.

I gasped, and shared my image of some stranger receiving this text. I don't know who started giggling first. Maybe it was simultaneous. But we started laughing. And we kept on laughing. Loud, gasping peals of laughter. Laughter that rose through my body in uncontrollable, delicious waves. Laughter that was just on the teary side of weeping.

Laughter that drew the attention of the other people in the restaurant.

A woman came over to our table. "I have to hear this joke," she said, which only made us laugh harder. After all, there was no joke. We were laughing at the horrible confluence of Dad's death and a missent text. I put my hand on my belly, trying to literally settle the laughter back into my body, and explained.

For a minute, as I told the story, I felt awful. Who can laugh on the day her father dies, especially such long and sustained and tenacious laughter? Who feels mirth on this day? But somehow, as the story wrapped up, I felt the awfulness drain away. What other day is there to laugh so hard? When he was finally free of his entrapment, and at peace? When he would take nothing else but joy in the sight of three of his daughters and his wife, laughing hysterically at something silly?

That experience let him know that we would be fine. That we will not do what he would not want us to do: get trapped in a mire of sorrow. Laughter didn't mean we were already forgetting, or that the sorrow had already dispersed. It meant that we were continuing to live, carrying his memory forward with us. A line from a random poem burst into my memory as the woman patted my shoulder: I have stolen/some of the light which drenches you this midnight/to wish you all the islands in the world/and every one a different kind of peace.

The food's arrival was what really quieted the laughter, although every one of us occasionally pealed out an exhausted giggle. We ate. I thought of a time I sat in that same restaurant with Dad, on Jake's second birthday, and all of us laughed at the sweetness on Jake's face when the staff gathered around him with a little cake, to sing happy birthday to him. We talked about funeral plans. Becky and I talked about running. Life moved forward a bit, with us—remembering, eating, and yes, laughing—living it the best way we could.

I Love Lucy

Last year, I got to meet some of the people I previously only knew through blogging (well, blogging & sdbbe-ing, but they feel fairly cohesive). Along with my sister Becky, I met up with

Apryl
Britt and
Jeanette

at my local Carl's Jr, where we let our kids play and we hung out and talked. Unfortunately I had to work that day, so I couldn't stay long, but it was still awesome. It is delightful to put a real voice to the writerly one I already know. Plus, it's like Whammo! Instant friend! because you already know so much about each other.

Oddly enough, I became really good friends with Jamie and Wendy, who are two of my closest real-life friends, because of blogging. By "closest" I don't only mean on an emotional level—I mean literally, too, as they both live less than a mile from me. But reading each others' blogs let us get to know one another in a way we probably wouldn't have otherwise.

I've met a few other bloggy friends in real life. Of course, Sophia and I have met several times. (She is my oldest Internet friend...we've been friends since before blogs!) My second-oldest Internet friend, Helena, and her husband once came to my house so we could hang out and talk about scrapbooking and folklore for her husband's dissertation. (In a strange coincidence, her husband also used to work at the library I now currently work at. Coolio!) And once I accidentally met Shaunte, whose blog I love because she's really, really snarky-funny. We bumped into each other at the movie theater and were both like, "Hey! I read your blog!" and then we went to our separate movies.

My husband and children think it's odd, this meeting of online friends. What I try to explain, and what they don't really get, is that they're not just online friends or blogging friends. They're just friends. Yeah, I happened to meet them through their blogs, but how many couples do you know who also happened to meet online? More than a few, I'd wager. Why can't friends meet the same way? I don't think it's weird. I think it's awesome, except for I do get kind of anxious beforehand. What if my blogging friend only likes me as a blogger? or what if *I* only like her as a blogger? What if, in real life, we have nothing to say?

So I was a little bit nervous last week when I drove to the mall to meet my friend Lucy. I found Lucy's blog by way of Becky's blog, because they were real-life friends before blogging. (Another it's-a-small-world connection: Lucy is friends with Kristin, who was one of my best friends in fifth grade.) I think we clicked over similar Twilight aversions and we've been great blogging and emailing friends since then. Last week, though, she was in town, and hence my drive to the mall. I had Kaleb with me, and she had Sam, and it was hot. So we took the kids to the play place at the mall and we sat and talked.

And talked, and talked, and talked! My nerves were for nothing because being with Lucy in real life is even better than hanging out online. She is kind, and funny, and sincere. Plus, she's a great listener—you know when you can tell someone is really paying attention, not just waiting for you to stop talking so she can say something? That's how Lucy is—she listens. And she asks good questions.

Our hour at the mall play place flew by. Kaleb had fun, too—in fact, he's still talking about next year, when Lucy and Sam come again, and we go to lunch with them andBen and Thomas (Becky's sons). It might even be at the Carl's Jr. where I met my other bloggy friends! (Orem's not exactly a hot spot for entertainment choices, obviously.) And I'm still thinking about serendipity and the finding of friends, and how I wished Lucy lived closer so I could bring her some ginger ale (she's sickly pregnant) and come to the hospital, bearing gifts, when her baby is born.

But, you know, it's OK. Because we still have each other's blogs, and emailing. Despite how we met, I still count her as one of my favorite friends!