Letters from Home – Page 101 – A blog by Angela Ross

Margins

I have always had meaningful work at church until five months ago. Even after out-of-state moves, I was busy at church within a month. I count these last five months as some of the most trying of my life. I have continued to minister to people on my own, and that has been sweet and saving, but there was a dread that crept in every Saturday night when I remembered that church was the next day. I wanted to partake of the sacrament, but I was sad to have nothing to do at church. (I was given a church job but I had to wait several months to act.)

For the first time in my life, I was experiencing what it feels like to be the marginal person whom people do not ask for help. Sure, I had a husband and children on the bench with me, so I looked like the model church goer, but my spirit was living on the margins.

Meaningful work is one key to mental health. The timing of school starting and no longer home schooling, Daniel going on a mission, and being released as RS president meant that I lost almost every piece of meaningful work in the same month.

I am coming out on the other side of that pain now and I am glad I went to church each week, even when it was hard.

I am glad I followed the prophet’s 4 tasks given to the women of the church, even though I was so angry at the time. Those tasks weren’t token acts to show I was being good. This was preparation for meaningful work in a home centered church.

The other night I was looking at pictures from the last five months, and you know what? I don’t look the way I felt inside. I actually have a bit of a glow in my smile. Where was God during all of this time of pain? His Spirit was right inside of me, holding me up and teaching me. I had a private tutor, guiding my thoughts and giving me courage to keep going. I see it now. At the time, I thought I was living on the margins of the flock, unnoticed, but I was actually being upheld by God. There is no better inclusion than that. I know God a little better now, and he is with the people on the margins.

Snow, Words, and Studio

I spent some time at BYU for a New Testament Commentary conference (yay Julie) and stopped by Paige’s studio.

I have spent an insane amount of time looking at short videos of Mark’s Scout Troop playing in the snow at the Klondike Derby this weekend. It brings me such delight to hear the boys’ voices and see them trying to run in snow pants and colorful parkas against a snowy background. It is the end of childhood and they are playing. My heart!

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
Anais Nin

Simple, uncomplicated me, just dipping my toes into being a mother of adults, wonders, “What do I know?” Very little. Nothing at all. But I delight in hearing my friend Julie Smith speak, whose book, The Gospel According to Mark, A New Rendition, was just published. I delight in seeing little boys happy, in seeing Paige’s actual palette of paints, in hearing Tim’s friends laughing in the basement, and watching Richard enjoy the lemon bars I made. There is depth and validity in those delights. It was a good weekend.

Snowflake Plates

I inherited many beautiful plates from my grandmother, and this unlocked the allure of seasonal decorative plates. I have added to her collection a few times over the years. I bought these with my Christmas money. I think they look like snowflakes. Their variety and beauty make me smile.

Morning light

This is my favorite time of the morning, when the sun moves beyond the mountain’s shadow, usually an hour after the valley sees the sun.

I take pictures of the house because I am thankful for it. We look at magazines or Instagram for inspiration for beautiful spaces, but they are usually photographs of rooms without people. Why does this please us? Rebecca Solnit wrote about this, and came to the conclusion that we dream of possibilities when we see a clean, clear room. But what about when the empty room also reminds us of times lost? I have a beautiful, empty kitchen and I wonder how I came to this so quickly, when life was so full before. There were four children with very different needs and interests to keep up with. Homeschool filled my life. There were projects at the kitchen table, art supplies everywhere, books on every surface, and piano music throughout the day. We sang together and we went places. Now it is just the crumbs of connection after long days of school and homework. I am not saying I believe we can or should go back to what we had. It’s just that today, I ache for what was. We have entered a bristly phase at home, and lately I can’t say the right thing. Stillness will be my lot for a while, whether I am alone or not. But the home is beautiful and comfortable for us when we can be together. We have conformed. We have conformed to much. We have also grown and achieved more than these walls can contain. An empty kitchen is just one evidence of the progress of our children to independence. I will learn to bear it.

Difficult and Easy

Last night, I awoke and couldn’t get back to sleep. I started thinking of the difficult things and the easy things I do. Included in my “difficult” list were big things (personal) and little things like having to leave the house. Ha! The easy things were kind of brainless, and included things such as looking at the news on my phone. Next, I thought about the really rewarding experiences I have had recently. Only one thing on the “rewarding” list was “easy.” Everything else that provided a rewarding experience was “difficult” for me, meaning it required courage, energy, work, or uncertainty. I visualized a Venn diagram of Difficult things vs Rewarding things and it had almost complete overlap, or correlation.

I need to learn not to fight against growth so much. The discomfort of ignorance and traveling to night classes is turned to awe at my fellows who have paid the price to learn things and for my God who created it all in the first place. The discomfort of reaching out to someone is overshadowed by the increase in my own spirit as I do it, regardless how the person reacts. Dealing with infirmity brings perspective and clarity that would otherwise be absent. God simply cannot be indebted to us. He is abundance and grace and generosity, even and especially in our difficulties.

Paige Lately

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.

The Week at a Glance

Lexi Walker was incredible in this show!

Relief Society. I am in the bottom left, listening to Maren explain that just because a room is organized doesn’t mean it will always be clean…unless one keeps it clean. (Mind. blown.) (Mudroom, I am talking about you.)

Tim begins another dance odyssey. This is a frisbee on which the paper is mounted. So cute.

I found a really good deal on a really nice smoker. Richard has wanted one for about 8 years. So we bought it.

Emphasis on the idea that Angie Found a Good Deal. Originally $1000

Stream of Consciousness

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!

Witness

Today Daniel’s apartment building caught on fire in Santiago, Chile. He escaped, thanks to living angels who stopped to warn, guide, and unlock doors. Feel free to join me in prayers of gratitude for his protection. He grabbed his scriptures, wallet, keys, camera, and photos which were already prepared for travel. He already had his shoes on when the call came to escape. He and the other elders had to abandon a smoky stairwell with hot handrails for a different route out. When they were trapped on the roof, with only locked doors to stairs going down, someone came up to open a locked door to a safe stairwell. A quote from his message today:

Needless to say, that was an intense experience. Maybe we were never in real danger. But my mindset changed. As a missionary, I already have very few personal belongings, but as I stood there with reminders of my family and my scriptures with all my markings and couldn’t think of anything else I would want to save I realized how easily we can get distracted by things that don’t last. There are a lot of things I left behind that don’t matter, and now that’s especially clear to me.

God really does protect us, guide us, answer prayers, and puts people, thoughts, and when necessary angels in our lives to help us return to live with him again. The Savior truly understands us, and through his infinite sacrifice and atonement we can be cleansed from sin.
-Elder Daniel Ross

I was very unwell all morning before I heard about this. Maybe I knew on some level he was in danger. I also felt complete peace when he announced his call (mission assignment) last April. I don’t need any more assurance that all will be well, whatever things look like at present. I don’t think he has his “cloak,” but he does have his “parchments,” (2 Timothy 4:13), and knows the value of them.

And last of all, here is a link to the journal page for our study of Matthew 2 and Luke 2 at our house for the week of January 14-20.

A Quote and a Good Book

We infinitely wrong ourselves by laziness and confinement. All creatures in all nations, and tongues, and people praise God infinitely…You are never what you ought till you go out of yourself and walk among them.
Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations

I recommend the book, Refugee by Alan Gratz. Mark had the option to read it and I was drawn to its subject matter. I read it in a few hours and loved it. I encouraged Mark to read it and talk about it with me. It follows the stories of three refugee kids, age 12, from three eras: Nazi Germany, 1990s Cuba, and 2015 Syria.