sunflowers

“The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, trusting the pony to get me home again. Sometimes I followed the sunflower-bordered roads. Fuchs told me that the sunflowers were introduced into that country by the Mormons; that at the time of the persecution when they left Missouri and struck out into the wilderness to find a place where they could worship God in their own way, the members of the first exploring party, crossing the plains to Utah, scattered sunflower seeds as they went. The next summer, when the long trains of wagons came through with all the women and children, they had a sunflower trail to follow. I believe that botanists do not confirm Fuch's story but, insist that the sunflower was native to those plains. Nevertheless, that legend has stuck in my mind, and sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom.” ― Willa Cather, My Ántonia

the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity

i've had this on my mind for the last few weeks, and inspired by my now former roommate brea's recent-ish testimony (did you follow that?), i am choosing to be a content contributor rather that just a content consumer. being that i am fairly liberal with my consumption and incredible conservative with my contributions, you should know that sharing this is big for me...obviously not that big though. i mean, i have a blog. anyway...

the title of this post comes from a passage in c.s. lewis' the screwtape letters. the book is a series of letters written from an uncle to his nephew, the uncle being an experienced devil and the nephew being a new devil, a devil-in-training if you will. in this passage, the uncle is trying to teach the nephew why a focus on the future is so critical to the success of their work. it gets a little wordy, so if you want to get the point, your full attention is required. uncle teaches:

"The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. 

wanderlust

the holiday travel buzz is upon us. i was thinking last night about this idea of wanderlust and how, you know what? i don't really have it. i feel like i need to make this announcement: i do not have a travel bug, people. i don't have it. and for some reason, i feel bad about it. consider this my public apology.

my whole life, i wanted to go to paris. after studying french for seven years, i was enchanted by the language and the culture. i wanted to eat croissants and hot chocolate for breakfast in paris (check), and crepes with nutella for every other meal in paris (check). i wanted to practice my french in paris (check), and buy a coat that i could say i bought in paris...in paris (check). also, i wanted to stroll (check check check), because people in europe stroll and we do not. 

i went for a week a couple of years ago right after christmas and it was magical and beautiful and amazing and i loved every second of it...even when my lower back started to hurt from the five days of constant walking. i was actually really happy to get on the plane home. did the back thing taint my experience? the antibiotic to my travel bug? not at all. do i have the insatiable desire to travel all over the world because paris was lovely? nope. 

so i've been trying to understand why people feel the need to travel. not just desire, no. the need. i realize i could just ask one of my well-traveled friends, but instead i read this article...

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/what-a-life-of-travel-does-to-you/

i had one of those magical moments that he talks about. well, i had lots of them in paris (rodin! signac! sacre coeur! l'entrecote!) but the best, by far, was coming out of the metro on a foggy night and rounding the corner of the trocadero to see the eiffel tower all lit up and glittering during the holiday light show. i ran to the edge of the terrace, like i was going to get a better view being 20 feet closer. it was breathtaking. i still get excited thinking about it. that moment satisfies me. it sustains me in moments that i feel a little caged sitting at my desk.

a moment captured by mom, made trendy by editing.

and the next one, because it was a gift from the dslr photography gods #mom'sgotanicecamera. let's just say, when you try to auto-fix it, nothing changes.

sigh. le million euro photo taken by yours truly.

and now, as i've made sure to announce to everyone i know, and several people i don't, my mother is a flight attendant again. shout out to pan am paula's unlimited travel benefits, from 1985 until their demise in 1991 (i think we bled them dry with all our trips to europe). what does this all mean? i can travel internationally for prices that would make your head spin. so i will. but, i should admit...i don't think i'm as excited about it as i should be. i know! there are a hundred thousand people that would kill for those benefits and i'm basically an ingrate. no! i'm not! i'm grateful, and my heart flutters a little at the thought of eating parm in parma. but i have a job, and the airport is so far away, you know? terrible excuses...just really terrible.

can we please just break down alex, the well-traveled article writer's favorite quote? "i haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list." really? that sounds exhausting. to those of you that might find a friend in alex, please, don't beat me up. besides, my hipster disdain for wanderlust is seriously suffocating me enough as it is. 

so, who wants to go on a trip?

ukraine

two years ago today, i arrived home from an 18-turned-19 month mission to ukraine. two years isn't much...i know. but it sure feels far away.

i remember when i opened my call, surrounded by friends with several members of my family on the phone, there was a moment that seemed like a movie. you know, where everything slows down and you can hear muffled shouts from the crowd but the main character is fixed on the girl/the bomb about to go off/a life-changing epiphany? yeah, that. in my life movie, this is that moment.

i felt like i was completely by myself in the room, just staring at a word on a page. ukraine. i have video evidence, though i may never be able to convey what was going on inside. you can see my face and my reaction...

 the call. right about 12 seconds is where it gets real.

i love that video because every time i watch it, i remember how it felt. i knew that ukraine, the word and the place and the culture and all that it implies, would be a part of my heart. i knew that the mere mention of the word would carry so much weight. 

in a journal entry written one year to the day before i entered the mtc, before i had a call, before i had even started mission papers, i wrote about my desire to live somewhere in europe and be so immersed in a culture not my own that it became a part of me.
Heavenly Father answered my prayer by calling me to ukraine, a culture that was actually partly my own; my great-grandfather was born in rozdil, a small town just 25 miles south of l'viv - a city i would serve in for seven months. 

you can never anticipate, can you, just how much something will affect you? i thought i knew in that moment, because i felt that time-stops-and-my-heart-just-got-hit-with-a-ton-of-bricks feeling. but i think that was the spirit's way of telling me that i really had no idea what i was in for. 

i grew to love and come to understand what it really meant to love the interesting, unique, frustratingly tactless and offensive, but somehow always endearing culture of the country. the people are strong and resilient, stubborn, cautious, and often cold. but also some of the most generous, loving, kind-hearted people i have ever come to know. ukrainian latter-day saints amaze me with their faith and dedication to the gospel, and their love for and trust in the Lord.  

ukraine will always be sacred space for me. it will be holy ground and someday i'll go back, and it won't be the same and i'll have another my-life-in-a-movie moment where i realize that life is something very different now.  

you know, for as much as i love words and using them to express my thoughts, i realize that i just can't explain how deeply i love ukraine and the people that i met there. so accept my pictures and my semi-decently formed thoughts and just know that i really really really like that place.

(i always said that the sky seemed bigger in ukraine. this picture makes me think i'm right.)

{think}

the subjects of trust and of vulnerability have been on my mind quite a bit lately. if you know me well, it comes as no shock that i struggle communicating in my relationships. dating, family, friendships, it's all fair game for my disfunction. i won't pretend that it's a problem i've conquered and am now going to expertly discourse on how to be vulnerable and trusting with the people that deserve those parts of you. no, no, just some sips to share.

1} from my mother:

"if a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him. there is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. we can all begin ‘freely’- as light preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have a heart enough to be really in love without encouragement...in nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. he may never do more than like her if she does not help him on." -charlotte lucas, p&p

2} from my visiting teachee:

sometimes

i have days that i wish i could go back to when life was a lot less easy but so much simpler

a couple discoveries

listen, listen, listen, listen.

 (if you're impatient, skip to 2:54 for the good part)

this one too.