Love

The talks in my ward's sacrament meeting today were very uplifting, motivating, and insightful to me. Fabio, a member of my ward, spoke on love, and the high councilman spoke on service. Fabio's talk felt so personal to me, I want to share the insights I gained from his talk.

Fabio said that love creates reasons. If a husband's wife is drowning and he has to think whether or not he wants to save her from distress, logically reasoning out in his mind the things she offers him and whether or not it would be in his best interest to risk sacrificing his own life to save her, he doesn't truly love her. But if he loves her, he will jump in and try to save her, without needing to reason in his mind whether or not he wants to. This made me think about my blog a couple weeks ago in which I talked about how love is the only good motivation for doing things. It seems as if this is an important lesson Heavenly Father wants me to learn.

Fabio also said that when we love something, we love it as an end, not as a means for some personal benefit. And because we love that thing as an end, we also love whatever is good for that thing. What they love becomes what we love, and their concerns become our concerns. Therefore, if we love Heavenly Father, what He loves becomes what we love, and His concerns become our concerns. When Fabio said this, I realized that is how we learn to love every human being on this earth.

Sometimes I have pondered on the commandment to have charity, and how difficult it is to truly feel love for everyone on the earth, including the people who annoy me or hurt me. When I have felt overwhelmed by this commandment, I have tried to remember that I shouldn't expect perfection of myself now, but that I can and must remember that God loves them. And I can believe and trust in that love, even if I'm not feeling a whole lot of it at the moment. That was the first part of my answer, and I feel that the second part came to me in Fabio's talk today.

When I find it difficult to love a particular person, not only can I remember that God loves them, but I can revamp my efforts to love God. As I love God more purely, I will love what He loves more purely--including His children I find difficult to love. As I focus on loving God--the first and great commandment--the commandment to love my neighbor will become more feasible and more attainable. And, for me, the task of learning to love God feels less daunting than the task of learning to love my neighbor (i.e., every human being on the earth).

I also find the thought that God's concerns can become my concerns very exciting. His work and glory can become my work and glory. I can learn to connect whatever I am doing in the day to bringing to pass the eternal life of man. I can learn to not care about what is not eternally important. And I can do this by conscientiously striving to love God more deeply.

This evening I read a quote on my friend's website that I really appreciated:
"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life; that word is love." - Sophocles

And a couple lines from Cheri Call's song "Brokenhearted":
"Broken hearts are deeper;
They've been open wide
And the tears become containers
To hold more love inside
And truly feel what only the brokenhearted can."

I hope and pray that as I learn to God more purely:
My love for Him will motivate me to do the right things,
I will see His children more as He sees them and love them as He loves them,
My daily tasks will take on new meaning as my work will become a mission revolving around His concerns rather than a number of obstacles revolving around my own,
I will be more able to carry the weight and pain of the world because of how His love strengthens and upholds me, and
I will use my life challenges as opportunities to become more compassionate.

Just as Fabio said today, love truly does make the world go round.

The Richness of my Life

Today I am grateful for:

The pink, purple, and blue flowers by the entrance of the library
The Cox Cabin
My roommates
The fragrant lilies in my living room
Unlimited night minutes on my cell phone
The Provo temple
The enthusiasm of my religion teacher
The calmness of my English 315 teacher
The William Baker Devotional last Tuesday
The Mary Lou Fulton research grant that paid for our San Francisco trip
The good people I went to San Francisco with
My camera
My new clothes
Love
Friendly people
How Heavenly Father helped me with my waltz and tango tests today
Chad
Natural lighting
Air conditioning
Scripture study
The videos of my nephews Audra sent to Mom and Mom forwarded to me
The opportunity to learn new things every day
Inspirational quotes
My health and energy
People who are different from me
My mom
The knowledge of the Plan of Salvation
Forgiveness

Affirmations for today:

My worth does not come from how skinny or athletic or smart or beauitful I am. My worth comes from the fact that Jesus Christ gave His life for me.

God has given me His love, and I can share it with a world that so desperately needs it. I can choose to live unselfishly and give my heart to the people around me.

I cannot know the reasons behind others’ actions, but I can choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and love them for who they are. I can leave judgment to the Lord (D & C 82:23).

Although it’s easy for me to become impatient and want to know everything right now, it’s important for me to exercise faith. I need to trust in God—that He will lead me along and teach me line upon line, precept upon precept.

The Lord repeatedly says in the Doctrine and Covenants that if we turn our will over to Him, all things (even hard, painful things) will work together for our good. That applies to me, too.

Although my society tells me to be individualistic, I can strive not to be. A good life is one that is connected to other human beings. I can choose to isolate myself, or I can choose to connect to the people around me. I can look for the similarities in our humanity and appreciate the differences in our personalities and viewpoints.

While it is true that I can’t do everything, I can do something. And it is by small and simple things that great things are brought to pass (Alma 37:6).

And as a closing note, and a reminder of how much learning I have to go, here's a story President Kimball gave in his talk, “The False Gods We Worship” in the June 1976 Ensign:

“One man I know of was called to a position of service in the Church, but he felt that he couldn’t accept because his investments required more attention and more of his time than he could spare for the Lord’s work. He left the service of the Lord in search of Mammon, and he is a millionaire today.

“But I recently learned an interesting fact: If a man owns a million dollars worth of gold at today’s prices, he possesses approximately one 27-billionth of all the gold that is present in the earth’s thin crust alone. This is an amount so small in proportion as to be inconceivable to the mind of man. But there is more to this: The Lord who created and has power over all the earth created many other earths as well, even ‘worlds without number’ (Moses 1:33); and when this man received the oath and covenant of the priesthood (D&C 84:33–44), he received a promise from the Lord of “all that my Father hath” (D&C 84:38). To set aside all these great promises in favor of a chest of gold and a sense of carnal security is a mistake in perspective of colossal proportions. To think that he has settled for so little is a saddening and pitiful prospect indeed; the souls of men are far more precious than this.”

Truly, souls are the treasure of this earth, not money or things (see D & C 111:2).

Ice Cream Day

Happy National Ice Cream Day everybody!! Teri and I celebrated by finishing off the carton of chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer. Ahhh, the joy of ice cream. And speaking of ice cream, last Friday I tried a flavor that was divine--it's Ben and Jerry's "Everything But The..." flavor. Lots of chunks of candy-bar goodness. I'm glad I could take the time today to celebrate the good ice cream has done in my life. Just look at how happy it made Adam and me in Italy!

Listening for a Whisper

"And it came to pass when they heard this voice, and beheld that it was not a voice of thunder, neither was it a voice of a great tumultuous noise, but behold, it was a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul." -Helaman 5:30

"For those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit; for the Lord God will give unto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even as it were out of the ground; and their speech shall whisper out of the dust." -2 Nephi 26:16

"The Spirit of the Lord usually communicates with us in ways that are quiet, delicate, and subtle." -Elder David A. Bednar, "That We May Always Have His Spirit to Be with Us," Ensign May '06

"Don't expect thunder when the still, small voice will do." -Bishop Beck

Family History

I went to the Family History library today and worked on family history for a little bit. I found out that I have 3,260 names in my direct line! That is a lot of names. My grandparents and aunts have done a lot of my work, and I am indebted to them. I also found out that I have 38 ancestors whose first names are Abigail! Who knew? Family history is so exciting, I look forward to learning more about it.

What are my reasons?

For the last week or so, I have been thinking a lot about motivations. Last term I had an automatic motivation to study for my classes--to prepare for Romania. I want so badly to be well prepared for my experiences in Romania, and so the motivation to work hard came naturally. I loved class and I loved studying. What I did each day had meaning and purpose.

But as the new term started last week, I found myself dreading class and everything that went along with it. I had to stop and ask myself, "Why am I going to school? Why am I taking these classes? Why do I want to get good grades?" These questions really helped me analyze my life--what I was doing with it and what I wanted from it. Honestly answering these questions helped me see where I was going wrong, and how I could make my life more meaningful. I realized I could do this with a change of motivation.

As I thought about this question--"What are my reasons for doing what I'm doing?"--one of my favorite movie quotes came to mind. It's from "A Beautiful Mind," when John Nash is giving his nobel prize acceptance speech. He says, "I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found. I'm only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am...you are all my reasons." I've heard that he didn't actually say this, which is kind of disappointing, but regardless, I think it's so poignant and right-on. Nash was talking about his wife in the quote, but I want to take it out of context and think of it in broader terms. That love is really the only good reasoning behind anything.

In my IAS class last term, one of the program facilitators made the comment that he wonders how love could function in our economic, social, and political systems. He wonders how these systems would be different if love was the motivating force behind them. I think that's a very interesting thought.

And then yesterday as I was reading my scriptures, I read 2 Nephi 25:26 which says: "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." When I read this, the statement came to my mind, "Christ was all their reasons." And truly, that's what I think it comes down to--Christ is the whole reason we have anything and everything we have, including life, and He should be the whole reason we do everything we do with our lives.

Joseph Smith taught that the most divine attribute was love, and John 4:8 says God is love. And so really, that's what Nash was saying, without realizing it--that the only good and logical reasoning behind anything is God.

And then in studying my Doctrine and Covenants student manual, I came across a quote that reiterates this principle. In talking about the different reasons people choose to be obedient, Elder Robert L. Simpson said, "The best reason of all is illustrated by the person who feels the desire to do right because he wants to add glory to his Father in heaven" ("Cast Your Burden upon the Lord," New Era, Jan. 1977, p. 4). And really, this stems in love--when we love God, we want to glorify Him. When we selflessly serve others, we demonstrate our love for God and we add to His glory.

I think happiness lies in living with this motivation. If our actions are motivated by love for the Savior and desire to glorify Him, we will find meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in our lives. That is why my life was so happy last term--what I did day in and day out was motivated by love. Love for the orphans I will work with, for the people in Romania I will serve and be served by. And by so doing, I was in a small way glorifying God.

This task of having our actions be motivated by the right reasons is a tricky one, because we have to continually battle what Satan tells us our reasons should be. And Satan's reasons are all essentially selfish. It's so much easier to be selfish than charitable. But at the same time, there's no meaning, purpose, or fulfillment in a life of selfishenss. So really, it's worth battling these selfish motivations and working to cultivate motivations of love. I imagine I'll be fighting this battle for the rest of my life.

Helping, Fixing, and Serving

Last term in my IAS class I read an article that I thought was extremely profound, and so I thought I'd share it with y'all! Enjoy!

Rachel Naomi Remen / Kitchen Table Wisdom / September 1999

Helping, Fixing or Serving?

"Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected."

Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.

Service rests on the premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.

Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness.

When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.

Serving makes us aware of our wholeness and its power. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others. Fixing and helping are draining, and over time we may burn out, but service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will renew us. In helping we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving we find a sense of gratitude.

Harry, an emergency physician, tells a story about discovering this. One evening on his shift in a busy emergency room, a woman was brought in about to give birth. When he examined her, Harry realized immediately that her obstetrician would not be able to get there in time and he was going to deliver this baby himself. Harry likes the technical challenge of delivering babies, and he was pleased. The team swung into action, one nurse hastily opening the instrument packs and two others standing at the foot of the table on either side of Harry, supporting the woman’s legs on their shoulders and murmuring reassurance. The baby was born almost immediately.

While the infant was still attached to her mother, Harry laid her along his left forearm. Holding the back of her head in his left hand, he took a suction bulb in his right and began to clear her mouth and nose of mucous. Suddenly, the baby opened her eyes and looked directly at him. In that instant, Harry stepped past all of his training and realized a very simple thing: that he was the first human being this baby girl had ever seen. He felt his heart go out to her in welcome from all people everywhere, and tears came to his eyes.

Harry has delivered hundreds of babies, and has always enjoyed the excitement of making rapid decisions and testing his own competency. But he says that he had never let himself experience the meaning of what he was doing before, or recognize what he was serving with his expertise. In that flash of recognition he felt years of cynicism and fatigue fall away and remembered why he had chosen this work in the first place. All his hard work and personal sacrifice suddenly seemed to him to be worth it.

He feels now that, in a certain sense, this was the first baby he ever delivered. In the past he had been preoccupied with his expertise, assessing and responding to needs and dangers. He had been there many times as an expert, but never before as a human being. He wonders how many other such moments of connection to life he has missed. He suspects there have been many.

As Harry discovered, serving is different from fixing. In fixing, we see others as broken, and respond to this perception with our expertise. Fixers trust their own expertise but may not see the wholeness in another person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When we serve we see and trust that wholeness. We respond to it and collaborate with it. And when we see the wholeness in another, we strengthen it. They may then be able to see it for themselves for the first time.

One woman who served me profoundly is probably unaware of the difference she made in my life. In fact, I do not even know her last name and I am sure she has long forgotten mine. At twenty-nine, because of Crohn’s Disease, much of my intestine was removed surgically and I was left with an ileostomy. A loop of bowel opens on my abdomen and an ingeniously designed plastic appliance which I remove and replace every few days covers it. Not an easy thing for a young woman to live with, and I was not at all sure that I would be able to do this. While this surgery had given me back much of my vitality, the appliance and the profound change in my body made me feel hopelessly different, permanently shut out of the world of femininity and elegance.

At the beginning, before I could change my appliance myself, it was changed for me by nurse specialists called enterostomal therapists. These white-coated experts were women my own age. They would enter my hospital room, put on an apron, a mask and gloves, and then remove and replace my appliance. The task completed, they would strip off all their protective clothing. Then they would carefully wash their hands. This elaborate ritual made it harder for me. I felt shamed.

One day a woman I had never met before came to do this task. It was late in the day and she was dressed not in a white coat but in a silk dress, heels and stockings. She looked as if she was about to meet someone for dinner. In a friendly way she told me her first name and asked if I wished to have my ileostomy changed. When I nodded, she pulled back my covers, produced a new appliance, and in the most simple and natural way imaginable removed my old one and replaced it, without putting on gloves. I remember watching her hands. She had washed them carefully before she touched me. They were soft and gentle and beautifully cared for. She was wearing a pale pink nail polish and her delicate rings were gold.

At first, I was stunned by this break in professional procedure. But as she laughed and spoke with me in the most ordinary and easy way, I suddenly felt a great wave of unsuspected strength come up from someplace deep in me, and I knew without the slightest doubt that I could do this. I could find a way. It was going to be all right.

I doubt that she ever knew what her willingness to touch me in such a natural way meant to me. In ten minutes she not only tended my body, but healed my wounds. What is most professional is not always what best serves and strengthens the wholeness in others. Fixing and helping create a distance between people, an experience of difference. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. Fixing and helping are strategies to repair life. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.

Serving requires us to know that our humanity is more powerful than our expertise. In forty-five years of chronic illness I have been helped by a great number of people, and fixed by a great many others who did not recognize my wholeness. All that fixing and helping left me wounded in some important and fundamental ways. Only service heals.

Service is not an experience of strength or expertise; service is an experience of mystery, surrender and awe. Helpers and fixers feel causal. Servers may experience from time to time a sense of being used by larger unknown forces. Those who serve have traded a sense of mastery for an experience of mystery, and in doing so have transformed their work and their lives into practice.

Rachel Naomi Remen,m.d. is Associate Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at U.C.S.F. Medical School and co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is author of the bestseller, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal

Family

Today I had the blessed opportunity to go up to Aspen Grove and sit in on a fireside in which President Thomas S. Monson spoke. It was in the outside amphitheater, with the view of mountains and trees on both sides. Simply beautiful. For part of the talk he spoke on his love of the book The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. He quoted Jacob Marley saying, "Business?! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" How right he was. I hope to live this truth throughout my life. People is what life is about. Family, friends, relationships is what life is about.

Three weeks ago I attended a day of the Howe family reunion in Fairview. I've been wanting to mention it in my blog since then, but I have been putting it off because I don't feel I have the words to describe how much it meant to me. There is a connection I feel with those people that I don't have with anyone else on the earth. There is so much power in family connections. I love them so dearly, and I am so grateful for them. I am so grateful for the example my aunts and uncles set for me. I watched them closely throughout the day, and I could feel the love they had for each other, especially during those moments when they worked together.

The night I attended the reunion was a Sunday, and we had a fireside on missionary work. Every one who had served a mission spoke about their mission--what they learned, what was hard, how they've been blessed by it. The Spirit in the room was extremely thick, and I don't think I'll ever forget that feeling. I watched the wives look at their husbands as they spoke about their missions, and I could see the love and admiration in their faces. To the world, there is nothing magnificent about these couples--they are just normal people getting older and less glamorous as they struggle to raise their kids. But in the light of the Spirit of that room, the beauty of their relationships shone. Still, as I think of their love for and commitment to each other, as I think of the lives of sacrifice they lead for their families and the gospel, I can think of nothing more beautiful.

When it was my grandma's turn to speak, she said what she says every time she has an opportunity to speak to her family--that every person in her family is her eternal, priceless gift. My grandma certainly has caught hold of the vision that Jacob Marley never did. She has made mankind her business throughout her entire life. She has left no doubt in my mind as to her love for me, as to how much she cherishes me. This is a gift that not every person has in life, and I am so, so grateful for it.

A week ago I attended another family reunion, one which was not my own. It was fascinating to observe them and sense that they felt the same love and connection to each other that I had felt with my Howe family. The power of family links was tangible to me then, even when they were not my own. This power is hard for me to describe, to put into words. But I know it is real, and I know it is the reason for which the earth was made (see D & C 138:47-48). I know that this power I felt is the result of covenants made in temples of the Lord, covenants which transcend any kind of beauty the world has to offer. These covenants are the most sublime force in the world, and I am so grateful that I was born into a family in which they were made. My family is the world to me, and I hope they know how much I adore them and how grateful I am for their love, support, examples, and friendship.

With God, For the People

Today I finished the most inspirational book that I want all of you to experience the joy of!! It's called With God, For the People. It's the autobiography of Laszlo Tokes, "the man who sparked the Romanian Revolution." But don't think that it's just my peculiar zeal for Romania that makes me love this book so much--I really think all Christians would like this book, even if they don't have an interest or investment in Romania's history. Laszlo Tokes is a pastor who fought against corruption all through Ceauşescu's reign, and continuously and courageously fought for the causes of Christianity. And his efforts eventually led to the overthrow of Ceauşescu. It's an amazingly beautiful story. Similar to The Hiding Place (another book I highly recommend). But I'd say it's a little bit of a quicker read than The Hiding Place was. Anyway, I don't think it's a very popular book, so it may not be in your city's library, but I'd say it's worth the few bucks of buying it off half.com if it isn't. It is told by David Porter.