The real cycle of life, the service cycle.

I have messed up so many things lately, mostly due to having misplaced my priorities. But I am still being blessed and being allowed to see blessings come to others. God is awfully good that way. I have lost some friends along the way this past week and I am still filled with confusion and sorrow about all of my mistakes and I find myself doubly stunned that God will still find it in his heart to bless me. But I can see how the good works I have managed to squeak out offer me the opportunity for blessings in spite of my many shortcomings.

A dear friend stepped up for me this week and came through when I was laying on my bathroom floor wanting to die. She went out of her way and I was praying for blessings for her and, you know what, that prayer was answered. Because she did what she did for me and that put her getting home much later than she wanted to get home, she happened to arrive as her children were working together to put the ornaments on the tree. She was able to sit in her car and just watch them through her front window as they laughed and reminisced and shared this duty happily together. It was a powerful moment for her, a real gift, as this looks to be the last year this will likely happen for their family due to college and grown up life taking her oldest to another state next year. There is not a better gift that I could have ever wished to offer her and I am so grateful that in serving me, the timing was such that she was given such a breathtaking moment.

Today I wanted to be at church early so badly because a talented organist friend of mine was playing the greatest piece of music ever written as prelude to our meeting. (That piece of music is Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" in case you were wondering.) But I needed to take care of a sick child and deal with yet ANOTHER leaky tire on my car and also do the groundwork necessary to make certain that our family could pick up a friend who we were gifting an afternoon at the Evergreen Children's Chorale concert after church. This friend has a tough time getting around on her own right now and much in her life is a struggle and I know that she loves music more than anything in the world and so I just knew that we had to get her to this show but the snowstorm was making that a bit tricky with her wheelchair and all. But a little legwork and brain power showed me the way to make it work. Well…we got to church late, really late. Poor Seviah was giving a talk despite being ill and she had to walk up in front of everyone and I will probably go to hell for that, but, well, add it to the list! Anyway, it came time for us to have our rest hymn, a song that we usually sing as a congregation between speakers to wake us up and get the blood pumping again. But today it was announced that my friend Gaylene would be playing her prelude number for the congregation since so few of us were able to hear it before the meeting. This was an amazing gift for me and I sat with tears streaming down my face as she played. For me, this was a hug from the heavens telling me that my good efforts were being noticed and there was someone there to help me repent and work past the messes I keep making.

Seviah gave a beautiful talk today on the scripture in Proverbs 4:26 where we are admonished to "ponder the path of thy feet". She reminded us that it is indeed a path we walk, not a trail we have to blaze, because a savior has walked the path before us and has felt what we feel and has been pierced with the pain that we feel and the pain that we deal to others and has overcome it and now gladly offers to show us the way and hold our hands as we try to do better. He is also offering blessings to remind us that we are indeed loved, despite the shortcomings. Whew, that's all I can say.

I have a book bug

Yes, I do have an illness. I used the word "bug" in the title of this post because it is the only word that I can think of that is a synonym for "severe illness" that begins with a B and I really wanted the alliteration.

Okay, this admission comes as no surprise to any of you, but I have had a few experiences of late that cause me to realize that perhaps it is bordering on a psychosis.

I took a normal friend to the library with me the other day and pulled up my account and she saw the number of books I have checked out, on request, and in the variety of lists I maintain on my library account to check out soon. She was torn between being amused and disturbed. I giggled about it then but later began to really think about me and books. And I began to wish that I had not shown her that particular small symptom in my greater malady. I felt acutely embarrassed.

As I sit here in my library writing, I look around and I see a house that is in desperate need of attention. My guys have been away all week and so it has just been me and Seviah here and we have been intensely busy juggling all that needed doing. So…I sorta have an excuse. However! If you look at any one of my bookshelves in this library or in any other of the various rooms that I stash books, you will find shelves that are in perfect order and every one of my 3000+ volumes have been carefully cataloged on a spreadsheet so that I can locate a book at a moment's notice. And doing the hard work it took to create such a catalogue was one of the happiest times of my life.

I also had a conversation with another friend this week when she inquired as to what I was reading. I responded that I was reading "Mugby Junction", one of my Halloween classics. She seem puzzled and asked what I meant by Halloween classics. I explained that it was one of the books that I read nearly every Halloween time. She didn't seem to understand so I explained that I have classics that I read every year at certain times of the year. She is an avid reader and so I thought that this would make sense to her. It did not. I began to make a few queries with other readers and learned that I am rather alone in this approach.

I did find that one of my students keeps to quite a rigid schedule in her reading. She always knows exactly what book is coming up next on her TBR pile. I am not that disciplined. I do keep the pile(s) in some semblance of a to be read order, usually by what is due next at the library, but I have a terrible time sticking to the order. I get ornery and pull one right out of the middle quite often. But I was grateful to hear of this young lady's approach to reading, it made me feel less alone.

I have pondered on this quite a bit and I have decided that I am not going to continue to be bothered or embarrassed by this behavior. I am too old and set in my ways to change (not really what I believe but it sounds good) and it is just time to be what I am and get comfortable. So I will return to Mugby Junction with all of its train tracks leading so many different destinations and its famous ghost story "The Signalman", the story that the Doctor deemed the greatest short story ever written.

Ah, the Doctor, now there is a whole new Cynthia psychosis...

In Tune

Many years ago we purchased a piano from a used furniture shop. We got it for a small amount of money because it was not in great shape and sounded really icky. We fixed up the outside and made it look pretty and put it in my library where the kids, well Michayla, have tinkered with it for years. It looks good in my library, It is a great place to showcase my one splurge piece of art (the head of the Madonna from Michelangelo's Pieta) and I like knowing I have a piano. However…it is painful to listen to. I mean really painful. I have tried a few times over the years to get someone to make the trek to Bailey to tune the poor instrument but was never successful for a price that I could justify. Well recently my friend Valerie and her family decided to purchase a cabin in our area and begin the process of converting their lives to mountain living (yippee!). Valerie is a musician and a piano teacher and so she happened to mention to me that she was moving a piano into the cabin and would need the services of a tuner. I jumped at that and told her that if she could twist someone's arm to come up then they could have two jobs for their travel. She made the arrangements and yesterday Mike came and made my piano sound pretty. I cannot tell you how excited I am about the sound it now makes. We have the dubious distinction of being the worst piano that Mike has encountered in all of his years of tuning. But I can smile about that because now we can make beautiful music.

There was a lesson that struck me deeply as I recorded my day last night before bed. We are often like that piano. We take good care of what is on the outside of us, we often look good, or work really hard to present a good face to everyone around us, but we do not have harmony on the inside. Our notes are filled with clashing discord. But we just keep working on the appearance and do not take the time to fix our keys, to tighten our strings and clean and adjust our hammers in order to run as smoothly on the inside as we do on the outside. There are times when we dabble in fixing the inside, but so often we find that the price is too high and we feel so alone. THEN…someone comes along and is willing to help us split the cost of the tuning. We come to realize that we don't have to shoulder then entire cost and burden alone and there is someone to show us the process and help us along the way. For me, the ultimate aid comes from the Savior, but often his works is done through others and I am so very grateful for so many people who have helped to carry me and lighten my burden and the high cost and effort it takes to keep me even mostly in tune.

My piano is not tuned to perfect concert pitch, it could not be pushed that far. Mike explained that these instruments are living things and can only be pushed so far in a single tuning, especially one as out of tune as my poor piano. So, it is a half a step flat from perfect, but it is in tune with itself. I tell you what, that is me as well. I am not perfect, but I am trying and I do get tired from the efforts I make to make myself better and I have to rest at times and accept that I am not perfect but that I am feeling the connections to those around me and I am sounding good for the moment. Mike said that one day, in the future, he could return and do more work on my piano, after she has had time to rest (yes, I am making my piano a girl). God is the same with me. He pushes then he lets me rest and then he pushes me again. I am glad that I have God and that he knows me and that he is patient enough to use this instrument even when I am a step flat from concert perfect!

Until she wears out

There have been so many powerful experiences in the past week that I need to just sit at this computer and write for hours to make certain that I capture everything before it begins to fade. But all of these great new insights and awe-ha's (Michayla's spelling and I love it) have worn me out. And I do not think that this is an accident. Today as I was leaving church, I watched my friend Jennifer take her wobbly one year old, Lexi, by the hand and walk with her from the far corner of the building clear out and across to the far end of the opposite parking lot. I was walking behind her, watching her adorable chubby little legs desperately try to keep up with mom and not fall down and just be a big girl. (Most of you don't know Lexi, but she really is a spitfire and wants to be as big as possible as soon as possible…kinda like her mom was as a girl…) I almost said something to Jennifer about being a brilliant mom because that long walk is gonna wear Lexi out and there will be a bit of peace and quiet for awhile for mom. Then it struck me. That is exactly what God did to me this week. He stuck his finger out and let me hold on and take my bowlegged, wobbly steps and see some great new sights and learn a few new things and remember a few old, important truths. And he took me the long way round and, boy oh boy, did he ever wear me out. And now, I can picture him kicking back and saying, "Whew, I wore her out for at least a few minutes and now maybe I can get some peace and quiet without her asking a million questions about a million things and begging help for a million people." Okay, maybe not in those words, but I think he is hoping for a breather from my endless curiosity. I am also seeing that I am like our new little puppy. Sometimes you just want to throw that chew toy REALLY far in hopes that she will take a bit more time retrieving it and bringing it back to you and then proceeding to chew on everything else but the chew toy. God would appreciate it if I would just chew on the, quite meaty, bones that are already sitting in front of me instead of running around trying to find more. But…I know he loves me and I also know that all of these questions and queries are part of spiritual gifts that he gave me and so I do not plan to give him much of a breather.

Boy was I a dope.

When I was younger and I first was attracted to genealogy and family stories, I kept searching for ancestors from some exotic locale. I was not at all excited about having most of my ancestry come from the United Kingdom. This seemed so boring. Boy was I wrong. As the years have passed, my love of all things British and Scottish has been unearthed and then has grown to be an enormous part of my personality and my focus. Then I was finally able to make the trip of my dreams and I learned that all of those genetic memory theories that I have been hatching and fostering for years had real validity and I was not travelling, I was returning home. I have been terribly homesick every day since I returned and the experiences that I had there brought me over and over again the realization that I had ancestors there who are still loving me and looking out for me from the other side.

Since I returned, I have been studying the history of this land and these peoples and it has been a fascinating journey. And right now I am studying the Anglo-Saxons and that early history of England. I am married to and my children are Egberts (Egbert is considered the first king of England) and so I wanted to learn more about those "barbaric" tribesmen who finally came together and began to form a kingdom. Boy was I wrong. These people were in no way barbarians. They were amazing and had an intellectual life that is rich and bountiful. And then I saw that they were also fiercely autonomous and proud and I am falling in love with these people. When Pope Gregory sent missionaries to this island, he felt strongly that God was telling him that these people would only accept Christianity if it was presented in their language, on their terms. He instructed St. Augustine of Canterbury that he could not convert these people like they had been converting people on the continent. They could not use only Latin. They had to use the native tongue. And this worked. The Anglo-Saxons were converted, but on their terms. With the use of existing pagan sites and dates of worship being utilized, not replaced, in the name of Christ. And these people changed the face of Christianity and brought a power and a strength and a sense of personal worship that had been lost, I think, since the time of Christ. I thought that I knew the power of men like Wycliffe and Tyndale, but I was wrong. The power of these men and this attitude was forged centuries before Wycliffe, with men like the Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great. And as I sit here studying tonight, I am positively soaring at the thought that I am descended from such a people. There are things that I miss about being young, but not being stupid and small-minded!

We are never alone and everything is ever more connected!

On Tuesday, I was stuck in a stupid snowstorm that did not allow me to carry on with the plans I had made, the road was literally closed. This was okay because the activities that we needed to access down the road were cancelled anyway, we just did not realize this when the policeman turned us around and so I was frustrated. I had managed to get Kodren to the high school for baseball and I was not about to go all the way home and then come back out again so the other two kids and I headed to the local library. As I sometimes do, I said a small prayer and then went searching for a book that would grab me. I found it. It was titled "Skellig" by David Almond. It was a beautiful book, in story and in presentation. And one of the characters pulled me in with her constant quoting of the poems of William Blake. I knew of Mr. Blake, but I had never explored closely, but Mina had intrigued me and now I needed to study the words of Blake. So, I went back to the library today and located a small volume of Blake's work. I sat in my car as Malachi had his hair cut and read the preface to the book which contained a short biography of Blake. I was stunned to read that he felt strongly about the same thing that has been so strong in my mind of late. The idea that we are not alone, that those who have died before are working to help us and strengthen us. This biography stated that Blake was a visionary man and had a special witness at the time of his brother's death that told him that his brother's spirit was free and elated and he claims that his brother appeared to him throughout the remainder of his life to bring him aid and inspiration. Given what he accomplished, I have no reason to doubt his assertion. But reading this gave me chills. I was reminded of the very real presences I felt when I was in the UK (both in England and Wales) and the continued evidences that keep coming my way that I stand on the shoulders of giants that went before me, both my ancestors and others, and that these souls who have gone before are a resource that few of us utilize to the full potential.

I likely sound crazy to most reading this, but this is my blog and I need to get this personal inspiration recorded. Recently someone pointed out to me that I am in a "Hannah" phase in my life because I am trying to patiently stand by as my daughter is spending 18 months of her life serving God, just as Hannah gave Samuel to God to serve in his temple, in that beautiful old testament story. Because of being thus told, I have been studying the story and life and words of Hannah and I have been strengthened in ways that I never anticipated. Hannah is mentoring me. And I am so grateful. And I fully expect that I enter different phases in my life that other women in scripture, ancestry, and history will also be mentors for me, in a very real and concrete way. I have seen how Jeanne d'Arc has been a huge mentor and influence in the life of my eldest daughter.

So very many people have gone before us, we have millions, even billions of mentors that we can pull from in whatever struggle or adventure in which we require guidance. Of course, Jesus Christ is the ultimate mentor and has suffered all that we suffer and so we should first and foremost, make certain that we are spending time studying his life, works, and words in our never ending quest for a mentor. But there are others, I believe, who are waiting and even needing to bring aid to those who are still living. See if you cannot find such a mentor who has walked a path that might be similar to some path that you are currently walking. And once you find that person, learn all that you can about them and find strength in the journey and choices they made, both good and bad. I promise you that you will not be sorry. As we walk the earth, after so many have gone before us, we are not alone. I get so disheartened by how many people I hear claiming to be alone or misunderstood. We have no right to say such a thing. Millions have given their all so that you could be here, right here, right now, we owe them something. We have the responsibility to use the experience of others, living and beyond living, to bring us strength and comfort. I know that this has happened for me and I have not even been aware of it most of the time, but I am now looking back and seeing when someone helped to carry me or rejoiced with me. I can truly say that I have never been alone.

In the musical "Once Upon An Island" there is a song that says, better than I can, what I am trying to say. Here are those lyrics:

The courage of a dreamer
The innocence of youth
The failures and the foolishness
That lead us to the truth

The hopes that
Make us happy
The hopes that
Don't come true
And all the love
There ever was
I see this all
In you

You are part
Part of the
Human heart
You are part
Part of the
Human heart

Of all who took the journey
And managed to endure
The ones who knew such tenderness
The ones who felt so sure

The ones who
Came before you
The others yet
To come
And those who
You will teach
It to
And those you
Learned it from

You are part
Part of the
Human heart
You are part
Part of the
Human heart

This is the gift I give
Through your love you'll live
Forever...

You are part
Part of the
Human heart

Forever

You are part

Part of the human...

Heart.



Please. Don't be alone. Find your place in the scheme of things and be part of that one big heart and community. And I close with so many thanks to those who help me be part of the heart of the world. I seem to find more of you all the time and I am so grateful.

Authors' names to go with the quotes

Here are the authors' names that go with the quotes I threw out there yesterday. They are in alphabetical order. See if you can match them up and then let me know! Have fun.

Louisa May Alcott

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Winston Churchill

Roald Dahl

Charles Dickens

Amelia Earhart

Doctor Who

Thomas Edison

Euripides

Mahatma Gandhi

Victor Hugo

Martin Luther King Jr.

Charles A. Lindbergh

Pablo Picasso

J.K. Rowling

Jonas Salk

William Shakespeare

Margaret Thatcher

Mark Twain

George Washington

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Quotes to guess

The following are quotes that I presented to my speech and debate class today. There are no authors listed. I gave them the quotes first to see if they could guess any authors and then I gave them a list, in alphabetical order, of the authors so that they could try and match them up. If you are interested, see if you can guess who said the quote. I will post the list of authors tomorrow. And the answers tomorrow night or the next day. Good luck and DO NOT CHEAT!

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward."

"Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience."

"Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know."

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience."

"I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time."

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it, but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.

Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds.

"Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future."

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

"His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even...knowledge, was foolproof."

"When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing."

"If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

"He always ate his meals alone reading out of a book open in front of him. His library was small but well chosen. He loved books: books are cold but sure friends."

The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things or make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things.

“I do not know anyone who has gotten to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it will get you pretty near.”

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

"When events are moving at hurricane speed and when scenes change with baffling frequency, it would be disastrous to lose that flexibility of mind in dealing with new situations... which is the essential counterpart of a consistent and unswerving purpose."

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

Journaling is also humorous!

I was reading in one of my really old journals yesterday and I came across an entry that I wrote that made me laugh. It had to do with a good friend who was a guy (and a wee bit protective) and whose roommate I found attractive. I asked him if he would set me up with said roommate and he just kept avoiding the idea and acting strange. I pushed and teased until he finally exploded and said "This guy is the most disgusting thing that I have ever seen when it comes to brushing his teeth. There is no way to even explain it, it is like nothing you can even imagine. There is no way that I am taking a chance on letting that mouth ever come near your mouth." Oh my goodness!! How can one even argue with that outburst. So...I never went out the roommate, but I have often thought about that guy and if he ever got married and if his poor wife has gone through hell all of these years because of his tooth care practices.

Why do I even write this post? Because I am so often PUSHING for people to journal and it is mostly for really intense reasons and because of desperate needs in their lives, but journaling is also just plain fun. And looking back on one's journal can be just plain enjoyable as well as fulfilling. Please write. Be it in whatever form you need, please just get some of your life history down.

The Shrinking World

My world continues to shrink and I could not be happier.



I read a book and in the book a poem is referenced. The poem is written by Robert Burns (yippee) and it is titled "Sweet Afton". My family helped to settle a place called Afton, Wyoming and I have come to learn that these hearty Scots named the valley after the place they had emigrated from in Scotland.



I read a book that was enjoyed by one of my students. In the book is Christopher Wren, as a young medical student. I have been meaning to move a study of Mr. Wren from the back burner to the front ever since my trip to the UK when I learned that the church of my ancestors, who came from London, was a Wren design. Suddenly he is coming to life on the pages of this novel and I have to go in search of him and he is now on my obsession list.



I have been asked to work on the Easter advent for the woman's organization at church. We all tend to have an advent period before Christmas, but we also need, perhaps even more, to prepare ourselves for celebrating Easter. I immediately thought of the African-American spiritual "There is a Balm in Gilead". So I will be preparing the women to sing this number in the future and will be using these words in our advent thoughts. The term "balm of Gilead" comes from Jeremiah so I have been studying that book of scripture. And then I get asked to speak in our sacrament meeting this week, last minute. Guess what the scripture reference that I have been asked to speak on? Yep, Jeremiah.



Even very small and silly things, like having a certain novel come up on my suggestion page on my Nook as a book that is available for a greatly discounted price. And that book, while a novel, is dealing with the very point in English history that I was trying to find more information about and the author of this novel gives good references.



I could go on and on but I have likely already lost my audience already. I have written before about connections and how I love to see them in my life, but I just wanted to get down, for the record, a few more examples of the power of providence and connection.