Freely

"We're Just Doing This" by Brian Kershisnik

Winter is dark. Oh, there is beauty in winter. God still sings, but the song is sometimes muted. Silence can be a song, I know. When we packed up Christmas, I asked Julie if we could leave a lighted wreath on our front door, an affirmation that light still prevails. It will give warmth and light and hope. It will beat back the darkness. Someone will be encouraged by its light. It will be worth the couple of dollars it adds to our electric bill. Freely we have received. Freely we will give.

Oliver ate so much candy on Christmas morning he puked. And then he ate some more. On the day after Christmas, Lydia asked if she could take some of her stocking candy to her friends in the neighborhood. She piled various saccharine substances shaped like or by Santa into a plastic bag, put on her snow boots, and dragged Emerson out the door. (This is not uncommon. A few weeks ago she got to pick anything she wanted at the dollar store for some reward she had earned. She chose a bag of red vine licorice. When we got home she asked if she could distribute licorice to her friends. One neighbor told me that his son was given a half piece because the rest was all gone. This son is two years old, and he was ecstatic. Freely Lyd had received, freely she gave.) Fifteen minutes after the kids left, they came home shivering and Em refused to go back out into the dark and cold. Lydia asked Oliver if he wanted to go delivering candy. I was only half paying attention and didn’t notice what the two-year-old was wearing. Half an hour later I was putting on my boots to go find my vagrant children when the door blew open and Oliver came in wearing a red coat I had never seen. Someone had seen my waifs out in the bitterdark winter and had compassion. Freely we have received.

A couple of weeks ago the skies scattered maybe six inches of snow on our city. I took up my shovel and went out front. Before I had cleared a path down the driveway, gentle brother DeRosier from next door appeared shovel-in-hand and smiling. Silently he began to help me clear my driveway. I don’t know how old he is—old enough to seem wise and mild—but he has had a stroke and moves somewhat slowly. I love that man. I asked him about Christmas. He told me that the best part was lying down on the carpet after dinner and watching his grandchildren play. After he had watched for a while, he closed his eyes and just listened to them. He smiled as he told me about it. By the time we were finishing, a new neighbor from across the street was out shoveling his driveway. He has a north-facing house. We went to help shovel and to get to know him. His name is George. He is a computer programmer and has four daughters. They all play instruments except the youngest. She plays the ipod and has a keen appreciation for the poetry of rap music. We smiled at each other as we finished shoveling and went our ways. Freely we received. Freely gave.

The summer after I graduated high school, I was driving my parents’ minivan near my house. On the side of the road was an old three-speed cruiser bicycle with a sign on it that said, “Free. Take if you want.” I stopped the van and had my friend drive it home. I got on the bike. I rode everywhere for the next few weeks. As summer ripened into fall, crispautumn smells filled the air. Crispautumn possibility shimmered. I was in love that fall. I put flowers in the small basket at the front of the bike. I whistled to myself and sang as I rode along cracked, uneven sidewalks underneath yellowandorangeandbrownred trees. I wondered if the golden streets of heaven might have these charming irregularities. I thought about mystery and how, well, mysterious it can be. Love and life and all that. One day as I rode off a curb, I pulled up on the handlebars so as to soar. The handlebars came off in my hands as the bike fell away below me. I continued my trajectory, steering an invisible bicycle through the air. Surprised, I almost landed on my feet. I called my friend to come pick me up. I was miles from home. I left the bike in a heap on the sidewalk and tacked a note to it. It said, “Free. Take if you want.”

That bike was a blessing to me. It is now a fondness residing in my memory. I always imagined that somehow it would go on to bless someone else. Someone in love. Someone in need. Some romantic. Some tragic. I imagined the small delegation of angels launched forth from heaven, wheeling and reeling with their tools, circling the old bicycle and making it shine like the day I found it, good enough to ride. I don’t know why I would imagine that my broken offering was somehow sufficient. Like the loaves and the fishes, broken and blessed. Broken bread. A broken heart and a contrite spirit. But I think it might be true. God gives liberally and then gives the grace necessary to make what we give in return somehow meaningful. Freely we have received. Freely we give what little we have. We do our best with the world and with the people in it. Our broken offerings are rendered sufficient.

My kidneys don’t work very well. And it’s just as well, really, because I got to get an MRI. It was fun. Truly. I don’t often have an hour to lie still and think. As I lay in that cold room, listening to beeps, I thought about the fact that I will soon begin a new semester of teaching. I was lamenting, really, that I will need to learn one hundred and seventy new names. They will not think I’m funny at first, perhaps ever. They will be depressed and sullen because the cold is beginning to infect our bones. We are losing the optimism that comes from the life-warming sun. But a thought entered my head: “Robbie, the most sacred experiences in life are the opportunities we are given to know other people. There is nothing so holy.” I thought about how my life has been blessed by the humor and the pain and the depth and experience of the students I currently teach. And what a blessing it will be to rub spiritual shoulders with a new batch. One hundred and seventy new and sacred names. And I felt a keen sense of my responsibility to share light. There may be something I am to do that would otherwise remain undone. Something to awaken in a young person’s heart. Something to spark. A poem from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours comes to mind:

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear

without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

but this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels

into the open sea.

I hope it is not arrogance, but I realized that I am God’s song. I am the harmony that floats above the whistling ruach. I am the laughter of His lips. My life is to disperse joy and meaning. And to receive. One Sunday morning my young son lifted the sacrament bread to my lips. I ate from his hands. I was the recipient of the ministrations of this small, holy child. Sometimes we are ministered to, and sometimes we minister. Freely I have received. Freely I will give.

The Light Sings

"That Song" by Brian Kershisnik

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” —Plato

Charmer of stones and trees, Orpheus could make the clouds dance with his song. The poet-seer manifests the power of godsong, the truth that God sings. Or plays the lyre. Or both. A couple of months ago, as we listened to my cousin Annie play heartbreakingly beautiful music from her lonely, lovely violin, I thought that God must play an instrument. Oh, I imagine He could play all instruments. But what would He have played as a man if He lived in a world like mine? That question occupied my mind for much of the concert. I think I have often pictured him playing the piano—ragtime—and laughing like my father-in-law. But he might be a violinist. I can imagine His mortal self as a wiry, intelligent violin player with a wry smile and a twinkling eye playing plaintive, mournful, wonderful music. My cousin Wayne imagines a cello, and that can’t be far off. There is a godlike resonance to the cello. And of course He sings. Oh, how He sings. I can’t wait to sing with Him. That’s why angels sing—His voice is infectious: you just have to join in.

We took the kids to the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake for the Christmas Carols service. It was a mingling of disparate holinesses: transcendence and imminence intertwined. God up there, and godliness loudly, wildly here in the bodies of my children. There were times I was anxious about the rambunctiousness of my four. And there were times I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me and wash me. When the choir began to sing, the air shimmered with the sound. It was absolutely breathtaking. We were sitting toward the front of the chapel, and the choir started at the back, walking down the aisles. Oliver couldn’t see the choir from his seat. “Who’s singing?” he asked, over and over again in his one-volume two-year-old voice. The cathedral ceiling was painted with angels, and angels populated the stained-glass windows. “Are the angels singing? Is it the angels singing?” I tried to explain that it was a choir at the back of the chapel, but he wouldn’t have it. Finally I said, to silence him, “Yes, the angels are singing.” And I imagine they were.

“Music is part of the language of the Gods. It has been given to man so he can sing praises to the Lord. It is a means of expressing, with poetic words and in melodious tunes, the deep feelings of rejoicing and thanksgiving found in the hearts of those who have testimonies of the divine Sonship and who know of the wonders and glories wrought for them by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Music is both in the voice and in the heart. Every true saint finds his heart full of songs of praise to his Maker.” That’s Bruce R. McConkie. And it’s true.

A year ago I was driving Lydia to her ballet class. Lyd wanted to listen to some music, but all I had in the car were some old cassettes. So I told her she could choose between Simon and Garfunkel (“I can’t remember that, so I’ll just call it Uncle Carbuncle”) and Huey Lewis and the News. “This is kinda rockin’,” she said of Uncle Carbuncle. Her assessment of the News: “This is just plain.” She expounded: “My dance teacher always chooses rockin’ music to dance to, which is funny because we do pretty dances to rockin’ music. There are four kinds of music: rockin’, pretty, plain, and both. Some music is both pretty and rockin.” So there you have it. I think Lyd is both pretty and rockin’. Both is the best.

I love living in a world of music. Music is evidence to me that I have a soul. It moves me in ways that don’t make sense, communicates to a part of me that transcends understanding. Plato said, “Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.” My testimony of God’s attentive love for humanity began with a song. I was twelve and in church and we sang “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer”—that song about a pillar of divine light falling on a wiry boy in the woods—and I felt truth and light pour into my slight frame.

“Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Last Christmas, an institute choir came to my work’s holiday banquet as we were finishing our food, and my expectations were low at best. But they scattered themselves throughout the hall, among the tables—a tenor here and an alto there. And then they sang. They sang glorias and alleluias and they sang light and love and grace. They were close enough, the close ones, to hear the particularity of their voices, but they blended with unseen others off in the distance. I closed my eyes and let it flow over me. Audible grace. I felt close to heaven. Of course I can’t really explain it because it was ineffable. And we all sat there stunned and silent afterward, unsure of what to say to those at the table by us because words were insufficient. I know words are often sufficient (because love engenders language and a desire for communion begets communication), but music is extravagant, abundant. It is transcendent. And I love it. It seems that God might well have sung “Let there be light,” don’t you think?

Berthold Auerbach said, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” We were gathered as a family on Christmas Eve. After we had acted out the nativity and shared scripture and story and song, we were wrapping up. Oliver asked, “When are we going to sing more songs?” Julie asked, “Do you want to sing more?” “I’m not going to sing. I’m going to wave my shaker.” He was holding a pom-pom. “Well, what song do you want?” “Drummer boy!” We started singing. My family likes to sing, so it was lively. As soon as the song struck, Oliver began leaping, a manifestation of what might rightly be called earnest gleefulness. His face was sincere. His body was exuberance. He bounded and bounced. I thought of Frederick Delius’s thought: “Music is an outburst of the soul.” After a few songs, my brother laughed and said, “That was healing.”

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” Johann Sebastian Bach.

Eight-month-old Eleanor loves to sing. She likes the pretty songs more than the rockin’. In church or with the family, when the world erupts into song, she opens her mouth and opens her eyes and sings along. She is very earnest. She feels it. “Aaaah! Aaahh!” Victor Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.” She neither has words nor can she remain silent. So she sings.

When we were up in Salt Lake one day, Emerson said to me, “Dad! The light sings!” He lay down on the cobblestones and placed his ear near the base of a lamppost which was emanating music. And the light does sing. How many celebrants expressed their joy at the birth of the Savior through song? Angels, Mary, Simeon, Anna, Zacharias. All sang. As well they might. One of the ancient temple responsibilities was that of singer. Because song is sacred. Because God sings. Because the song is light.

Prayers

"Heralding Angels" by Annie Henrie

Prayers for Rory, whose brother died Friday and who found out while he was in my classroom. Who seemed so lonely and sad and confused and my words failed. Prayers for the two babies and the wife of that brother, who found themselves widowed and fatherless and who must be, must be,  in the special providential care of the Father of all.

Prayers for Michael who told Rory that he worries every minute of every day that his father will be killed in Afghanistan but that he has learned to trust that death is not something to fear. Death is not the end, it is the beginning. Death is a great, bright adventure. We should not be afraid of death.

Prayers for Lorina who told Rory that three of her siblings died by the time she was twelve. When her six-year-old sister died when she was twelve, she saw her little brother and sister who had gone on before come to recover her and take her into a world of light. Who still feels their presences and thinks of their faces and wonders and hopes.

Prayers for Andre whose mother and father died in a car crash when he was a small boy and who was adopted, along with his four siblings, by his aunt and uncle who already had six small children of their own. Who began hating his aunt-mother when he was a young teenager and felt that his own mother would not be so demanding and his life would have been much better if she had not died but who eventually tried to serve and love her and realized she is a marvelous, beautiful woman. I really love her, he said. Who told us all this a week ago and who asked if he could maybe offer a prayer for Rory. He prayed for courage and hope and comfort and strength.

And prayers for all the rest of those bright, beautiful, broken kids who wept with and for Rory and who are fighting demons and devils and darkness of their own. Prayers for this world in which horrible things happen and people shine with a light so resplendent it makes you wince in agonizing love.

The Numinous

A couple of weekends ago Ellie had a hard time sleeping, so I took her outside to see if we could catch the tail end of the Perseids, to watch the sky rain stars. Ellie is often calmed by the natural world—by the feeling of sun or stars on her skin. There is something remarkable and humbling and holy about a sky full of small, bright, distant specks of glory. “If a man would be alone,” writes Emerson, “let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. . . . If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.” A good metaphor for the ubiquitous, commonplace glory that we swim in: like the miraculous, life-sustaining air we breathe, the beauty and grandeur of God’s creativities become invisible to us precisely because we see them so often.

"Celestial Rose" by Gustave Dore

How often has the green ground slipped out from beneath my feet as I’ve stared into the brilliant black and glistening night sky? I drove across a lovely blue and gray desert with my family, and as the sun lay down to rest, the stars came out to play. I felt for a few moments that smallness that comes from observing the tilting, whirling universe of light. Hopkins writes exuberantly, “Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! / O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!”

But that night with Ellie the stars were not out, and we could not see brightness hurtling through the dark universe. The sky was closer, covered. It might have been smoke. The mountains around our home have been smoldering like Sinai for weeks. It has showered ash on our heads and on our lawns. Or it might have been clouds.

Lydia, who, like her mother, has exceptional olfactory capacities, sniffed loudly one day when she was probably three years old as we passed a gas station. “What’s that yucky smell I smell?” We told her we thought it was probably gasoline. She sniffed for a minute more. “I only smell one good smell.” She took a deep draught of air. “It’s the clouds,” she said.

I am struck by how often clouds are the manifestation of God’s presence in scripture: “And, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.” Or, “And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him.” God leads Israel out of Egypt by a cloud in the daytime. He promises to spread a cloud over His people for a covert in a day of heat. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the bright cloud overshadows Jesus and His three dusty, weary friends, and the voice of God the Father rains down out of the cloud. Peter’s simple and apt response has long resonated with me: “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” I wonder what kind of cloud it was that covered the Son of God on that bright day. Cirrus—(which comes to mean “a curl of hair”)? Nimbus—(“rain”)? Cumulus—(“a heap”)? For a long time I thought the word numinous  must have something to do etymologically with clouds. In Spanish the word for cloud is “nube.” But I was wrong. It comes from the Latin for “nod,” and signifies God’s divine approval shown by a nod of the eternal Head. Oh, numinous clouds. There was a summer when I was a teenager in which I climbed up the fence onto my roof and sat watching the sunset every night. I took pictures. I wanted to document a whole summer of sunsets. That was a good summer.

But as often as not, the cloud also represents the hiddenness of God, our inability to perceive all that He is. Our failure to see. He’s always there on the fringe, just out of sight: just the hindquarters, but not the face. And yet, one day Christ will come in a cloud and in glory. And all people shall see it together. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” So I watch the clouds as well as the stars.

Truly the light is sweet

I have been meaning for a long while to create a blog in which I might affirm that existence is holy, that humanity--with all of our flaws and brokenness and heartache and capacity for wonder and goodness--is sacred, and that quietness and love are desirable and lovely. Well, here it is. With Hopkins (who might well be the patron poet of this blog), I want to stand in awe and ask, "What is all this juice and all this joy?" I don't know why my life should be as luminous as it is, but I am grateful. Likely, many posts (if many there ever are) will be celebrations of the mundane--the poetry of the prosaic. I live in a world of light. And, truly the light is sweet.