As we approach the worldwide fast for relief from the effects of COVID-19 tomorrow, I want to share this painting by J Kirk Richards entitled, He Healed Many of Diverse Diseases.*
As you look at this painting, what do you notice? Can you picture yourself here, and if so, which person seems most like you? What do you learn from the child in the painting? Who are the people that are ministering? Who might be feeling fear or anxiety, and what can you learn from their acts of faith? What feelings does this painting evoke? What truths about a merciful God can be found here? What can you do to point others to the Master Healer at this unique time?
I like the following graphic, but it is missing an important point: a prophet of God issued this call to fast. President Nelson is inviting us to plead for ourselves and our brothers and sisters all over the globe.
*This painting can be found in the 2020 Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families manual for the week of February 10-16, page 29.
BYU campus has lost its bustle and busyness. In the Harris Fine Arts Center, production posters have red “Canceled” signs posted on the diagonal. Each canceled event represents thousands of hours of effort, unfulfilled.
Paige and I installed her paintings for display this afternoon, knowing there will be no reception and not much traffic in the building. She painted eight illustrations based on The Secret Garden, and they will be on display for the next two weeks.
In her artist statement, Paige writes, “When I was seven, my grandma gave me a copy of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It has been a special story to me ever since. Initially, I loved the book because I dreamed of finding a secret place to make my own like Mary discovers the garden. Now, I recognize its deeper message of healing which feels urgently relevant today. Mary and other characters are healed physically and emotionally as they care for the abandoned garden, let go of fear, overcome selfishness, and develop meaningful relationships with each other. As Mary cultivates interests and a purpose outside of her own self-centered ways, she blooms and grows harmoniously with the garden. We all seek personal healing in some form, and this story brings hope that the healing we seek is possible.”
I finished assembling the quilt top, thanks to the gift of an extra day.
ski trip
Tim broke the family speed record for skiing. I wish I didn’t know this.
Tim’s band visited Mark’s band.
Birthday dinnerAfter 11 years of searching, then waiting for a sale, I bought a piano lamp.Richard and I spent about 5 hours preparing French food yesterday, and it was really disappointing how awful it tasted. Ours actually looked like this photo. pc: tablespoon.comMark at Youth Conference.
This week, as I ran errands and shopped, I was asked a few times if I was planning to do something fun. Yes! We celebrated Richard’s birthday with food, food, presents, food, and desserts. At Costco, someone asked if the next big birthday was the big 4-0, and since the scales have tipped toward 50 for me, this miscalculation has embedded itself in my heart and grown into many private smiles. I love celebrations with family, the preparation, anticipation, and the memories.
And, if you want to see Paige’s 8 beautiful paintings inspired by The Secret Garden, her show is coming up soon. I love seeing Paige’s illustrations.
As for the Daniel, he had the opportunity to meet Elder Uchtdorf and shake his hand last week, and he was invited to share his testimony in Stake conference. He is moving to a new apartment that has hot water. He has been busy assembling emergency kits for each companionship in the mission. With summer holidays coming to an end, they expect more protests and violence in his area, but the kits are more in preparation for earthquakes. He is teaching Rosa and others with his companion who is from Canada. I had my first bad dream about his safety, and I can’t hear The Prayer (Bring Him Home from Les Miserables) or Danny Boy without tears. Still, I love being part of a missionary family.
One thing I do for my calling at church is teach Primary children during ward conferences. I made this visual aid for last Sunday to teach about Isaiah’s “Mountain of the Lord’s House” and it was a lot of work, but the kids really loved the doors and windows. They also loved talking about how temples are like mountains, places to feel peace, quiet, and see beauty and light. I also loved the comment about mountains being places of adventure. I think learning of God’s ways is one of the great adventures of life. I love what I learn as I serve in Primary.
My friend Anne invited me to join her at the Opera this week. This is what we saw. I especially loved the three-tiered set, the three leaders of men, and the scene in the snow where they sang about simple things of home. And the poppies.
The definition of a good day expands when I am thankful, and it contracts when I am self-centered. By all measures, narrow and great, I have had some good days this week.
In Spring Lake, I taught a little art class and we made small tile mosaics. I spent time sitting on the porch with my mom and some of my sisters. I walked in the canyon with Richard three evenings this week.
I was a bit starstruck to meet two great historians and authors, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Kate Holbrook at a conference. And by “meet,” I mean there a was a conversation about our shirts as we waited for bathroom stalls. Later, “Thank you for your work,” was all I could think to say when I met the Pulitzer Prize winner, but I think that was just right.
What do most of these activities have in common? They were opportunities for me to deal in vast things, such as relationships, possibilities, and nature. They were opportunities to learn from other people. For all the reading and scholarship that I love, there are levels of understanding to be gained only through hearing a person’s voice.
Roommates. Not sure which holiday they are celebrating with the pumpkins and poinsettia wreath, but I like it.The artist is listed in the upper left. Paige is the model for this portrait.
Happy, happy goodness. I am so thankful for Paige’s experiences at BYU. She lives near enough that she can come home now and then, she is studying what she loves, and has opportunities to travel and learn, learn, learn.
After a blustery night and as I enter a gray-brown day, I see winter-swept scenery through bare branches. I have some projects with fabric once the floors dry and I finish dusting. I need to do some clothing alterations. After that, I hope for easier weather when I have to carry my sewing machine to a friend’s house for quilt work with friends who will probably be dressed in gray sweaters. Sometimes the howl of the wind thinks it will remind me it is winter, but I need no reminders. The steely light permeates every corner of the house, a reminder that the sunlight is there, but has traveled through miles of clouds to reach us. Today, we just get the leftovers of sunshine. The views are bleak, but the snowflakes on my window help.
Even my church assignment (I still do not feel it is a “calling”) is about the dead. Shoulders hunched and eyes focused on computer screens, I study clues from handwriting of those long gone. I sit among people 20-30 years older than I am in research classes and feel young! Woot! I have never felt so isolated, but I anticipate connection with living people will be possible in this work, eventually. I am entering my fifth month away from church assignments involving people who breathe. My temple and family history assignment still is not defined, and I wait. It’s a busy kind of waiting, as I have so much to learn. I am giving many hours a week to a work that feels absolutely invisible, kind of like housework. Ha!
My assigned ministering route was changed and not a single woman wants me in her home. Some have had it with churchy things. Another just needs to get out of the house rather than have a visit. She helped me make the snowflakes on my window as we talked this week. I count it an act of trust when I get a text from one asking me to give her son a ride home from school. Discipleship and ministry are among the indefinable things.
I gift myself one day of study a week. In these books, I lose myself to a degree that I call indulgence. Church prophets have often told women they are needed and important, but now I feel I have been given a task to prove it. I have come to understand that my New Testament knowledge, gleaned over years and years, is needed in my family. I still apologize and feel insecurity when I let myself be seen by my family for who I am: a scripture nerd. I spend time coming up with activities that will allow my sons to come to love the New Testament as I do. It takes all my self-control not to spill out what I have learned and what I feel, and what the Jews did, and what the landscape is like, and what a different translation teaches, and literary techniques of Gospel writers, and, and, and, and…Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart. In a house full of men who do not enjoy conversation, I do a lot of pondering.
A few weeks ago I realized that Tim and Mark have seen very few plays, so I bought tickets to The Wizard of Oz at Hale Center Theater for later today. This will be a good start to a four-day weekend for them, and we are all ready for it. There was a bomb threat at Tim’s school this week and half the student body stayed home on Wednesday. This week I have learned that I need to get used to my children being in mortal peril. Let’s celebrate by watching Dorothy get swept away by a tornado and flying monkeys!
It is finished! It took me five years to complete it. I would work on it a few weeks each year, get frustrated, and put it away. Now I have a folk art decoration that is not my usual style, but I love it. I love Thanksgiving. I love the colors of autumn. I love gratitude in all its forms. I love praising God and feeling his love for me. I love time with my family during this season.
