A Second Post about this Piece of Music

I am posting this piece again on this Holy Week, because it captures the meekness, agony, and triumph we commemorate at Easter. If you want to know more about the composition, the second video is an interview with the composer who set out to write a piece using common liturgical phrases with simplicity and power, enough to “knock people’s socks off.” He wrote it by candlelight in a cabin on an island. “There is no electricity or anything in that piece.”

You don’t have to know the words to feel the power of this piece, so listen in a solitary place and feel what the music has to share with you.

O Magnum Mysterium

https://youtu.be/gi51yTIQJXc

Little things this week

General Conference
I will really miss him.
Quilt group at our house this week.
These ideas for family history at a friend’s home were inspiring. It was an honor to see their family’s testimonies and how they celebrate their ancestors.
Loved it.
Tim has another black eye but declined to be photographed.
I kept the conference block tower for several days because Mark did a brilliant job.

Canyonlands, Needles District

In the shadow of sandstone formations, I watched the boys scale almost every surface they could. In the silence of the land, I walked a little with God and told him things I really want to do and felt his blessing. In the light of the temple, I saw more clearly who my sons are, and who they are becoming.

A neighbor observed that the views we seek most often are valleys, not mountains. I think we love the view of a valley because it reminds us how far we have come. We are ascending, after all.

Sights and Sounds this Week

We did some things. We saw some things. We read some things. I put correction tape over some ugly words. Blah, blah. I’ve been writing this blog for ten years, running out on a stage with my best words, my cutest people, and biggest achievements and the audience is mostly silent, kind of like when I play violin in church. The absence of applause screams doubt in my mind sometimes. Writing here is loneliness, multiplied by ten years. Writing here is also sanity, multiplied by ten years. This is how I feel on this tenth anniversary week.

Just little happy experiences

There are just little happy experiences that writing about doesn’t do justice. Pictures or videos don’t capture it. Memory isn’t exact enough. But there’s an eternity of those ahead… -Elder Daniel Ross

This is something Daniel expressed to me via text this week and I have thought about it again and again. Tiny interactions and connections, the evidence of humanity and goodness, can cut through differences and keep us afloat.

I walked several steps behind a little Muslim family into a store this week. The five or six-year-old son stayed behind to hold the door open for me. They weren’t speaking English, so I just smiled and gave a small wave to the boy, who had thrown his might into keeping the door open as a kindness to me. My thoughts about this family’s differences as I walked behind them in the parking lot just seconds before this interaction felt so shallow.

A different day, during school and work hours, a young father, with a daughter and a son, no older than ten years old looked at a wall of religious art. The daughter had taken an expensive framed print off the display wall and was cradling it until her arms. This was the one she loved. Later, at the cash register, I stood behind the family, the father now holding a few inexpensive prints similar to the expensive framed edition. He offered to buy a piece of candy for each child, but the children seemed content with the slips-of-paper-Jesus hugging someone. When it was my turn to step up to the register, I couldn’t speak or see clearly for a few seconds for what I had just witnessed.

The middle school kids swarmed the entrance to the public library as Mark and I drove into the parking lot after school. I offered to stay in the car as Mark found some books, since our path was through a sea of peers. He said no way. If somebody had a problem with his mom, he’d beat them up. He figured he was taller than most of them, so he had the advantage. In other words, he knew that walking with me would take courage, and he was up for it. You will be relieved to know that no violence ensued during the walk, and there were just a few loud hellos. The strong empathy in my personality made me feel insecure along with the preteens, but Mark and I made the walk together. I loved him for it.

Yesterday Tim went out to take photos of the sunset. He said he was trying to take more pictures like Daniel did. Then he mentioned that he wished he could look at Daniel’s photos of our vacations last summer, thinking there was no way he could see them. In covert sentences and expressions, Tim lets me know he misses Daniel. I pulled up Daniel’s albums on my computer and Tim was delighted, and in his understated, earnest way he enjoyed every one.

This, not this. This and this.

Some things I am thinking about: Influence, not power. Meekness, not pride. Endurance, not a sprint. Quiet, not clamor. Active, not passive. Present, not distracted. Nourished, not just full. People, not things.

Behold and love. Breathe and taste. Rest and heal. Seek and find. Lose and find. Read and learn. Swim and swim. Wait and see. Grateful and content.

What’s the Password?

My friends from childhood grow more fabled in my mind as the years go by. It’s not that I exaggerate their traits or the things we did, but as time passes, it seems more and more fantastical that we had free range around town and spent so much time watching television.

More than what we did, I remember my friends’ homes. In these wood paneled living rooms and dusty blue, goose-clad kitchens I was informed about a world where it seemed every parent but mine had a waterbed and cable television. A world where teenagers sat around listening to music and being moody. Impressions of my friends’ homes, food, games, clutter, music, family dynamics, and older siblings offered a strong contrast to my own, and they remain with me in Technicolor reels in my head.

My friend Thora was an inventor of clubs. Secret societies in tiny meeting places are common enough in childhood, but have you ever been interviewed by your best friend to join a club and failed the interview? Well, I have.

She pulled me into a dark closet, decorated snugly and in theme with the club’s charter of being glamorous and mysterious. She commenced a well-planned list of questions, probably about my likes and dislikes, which I was confident that I had answered well. It was only in the last question of the interview that I knew I was to be an outsider. “What is the password?” Thora asked. I scanned the carpet as I retraced conversations in my mind. WHEN had she told me the password? I couldn’t fathom. I gave up.

Smugly, and with triumph, she pointed to a magazine advertisement on the wall. In diamonds, the word, “Sparkle” was written in cursive on a dark background. The password had been not six inches from my head the whole time.

Her psychological experiment finished, she tidied up her papers and slid open the closet door. There was no mercy in the application process and I was excused.

I am still friends with Thora today, and have learned the wisdom to avoid exclusivity. Still, I find the memory of the word, “sparkle” a little bit grating.

In Quilting News


This quilt is for the Quilts of Valor Foundation. This week we learned where our quilt will be sent and that it will be displayed with other quilts until it is chosen by a wounded veteran. The picture is included with the quilt so the person can see who made it.

There were more people who worked on this than are pictured, but I am thankful for the memory a picture holds.

The quilt group in my neighborhood has been a joy to me. Now that our leader is moving, I find myself feeling very sentimental about all those meetings in Kaye’s home over the years. I think of the things I have learned, the funny things people said, the beautiful quilts, and the oohs and aaahs when someone would show her finished quilt. I am thankful that Kaye not only taught me how to quilt, but provided such beautiful inspiration from her own projects. She is an artist and she is immensely generous. There are happy, happy memories in her home which goes up for sale tomorrow. Sigh.

With a Smile

I think when I look back on this time in my life, I will be thankful that I was present when Tim came home from Frisbee practice, muddy and smiling. I will not regret being home and available to video chat with Daniel for the first time since Christmas. I will smile when I think of the jokes I made with Mark about the DWISBA as I drove him home from school. I will remember the texture of each boy’s hair in my fingers as I gave haircuts and the smell of starch while ironing shirts. I will smile at the memory of the beautiful home I worked to create. I will remember the souls I loved and the ones who loved me. I will remember that this was a sweet time. Sometimes I feel weary, unwanted, and stagnant, too, but that will not be the melody when I look back at this time with the perspective of age. I can see myself looking back with a smile. These little moments make me smile today.