The Take-away from Ruins

Wow.  This mission has great benefits!  Along with the joyfully fulfilling work in which we are engaged, the endlessly fascinating place in which we live, the intricately complex culture in which we walk, and the continually admirable personalities with which and for which we labor, we occasionally get to share it all with family!!!

It's fabulous.  In the past few weeks, we've enjoyed the company of four children, their spouses, and four of our grandchildren.  It has truly enhanced, in very meaningful ways, what we're doing here.

We had the rare opportunity to leave our mission boundaries with a trip to Barcelona last week, for Ian's baptism.  Tamra was already there with Amy, Lawton and the family; and Jesse and Rachel were with us, following on the heels of a sweet visit from Ben and Bonnie.

For Ian, this is a new beginning, a gateway covenant with the Lord that will form a firm foundation for his life.  All of this one week after Easter.

On one occasion as Ian, Aidan and I were "hanging out" up in their room, Ian asked me, "What was Mom [Amy] like as a kid?"  I rattled off a couple of things - bright, happy, loved to take care of others - and he interrupted with, "Did she like ruins?"

Best ever question from a kid living in Europe!   It really is a unique experience to wander through ruins; you feel as if they enclose, in some way, the spirits of those who inhabited them; your spiritual self keeps looking for a real being of a bygone era to walk around the next corner or emerge from behind the next crumbled pillar.

In case you don't know - and I think pretty much everyone does - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is ALL ABOUT families.  Our family is a miracle; but it is still very much a work in progress (in the thick of it, it's hard to think that this is probably true for every family).  We've been preaching so much about family, and about what keeping our covenants with God, and His grace through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, has done for us, that you'd think we must somehow have arrived at some kind of familial nirvana by now.

This is not so.  We.are.still.so.distressingly.dysfunctional.  There are ruins populating our psyches, parts of each of us around some corner or behind some pillar, attracting our notice and calling for resolution; for deeper, probably more painful, consideration.  However -- just as the excavators of Herculaneum or the astonished discoverers of the Greek theater in Naples' historic center must have felt upon first recognition, a coming-to-the-light of an old hidden ruin is a marvelous thing.  After the pain.  After dragging it out and putting it into words.  After the gut-wrenching sobs -- suddenly you see the beauty, the pattern, the colors; the puzzle pieces come together.  The "ruins" are still there, but they speak in ways that heal.

I love this crazy family.

I do not use the word "crazy" lightly, by the way.  I have discovered by experience that to the degree in which dysfunction exists, so does crazy.  To the degree that we can feel, talk and cry in meaningful ways, we are functional and sane.  Happily, I believe we keep getting functional-er and saner.  We are still in dire need of the blessings of the Atonement.  On our part, we cannot afford to slack off honoring our covenants, doing our little mortal best.  Repenting.  Forgiving.  

But "the glory that was Rome", and the ruins in our individual lives, have a gift for us.   We like ruins.  And we love new beginnings.   In the end, it's all about Easter.

Alleluia.

# Prince of Peace

Bonnie and Ben, in front of my favorite Roman edifice, the Pantheon.

I liked this statue, one of innumerable in the Vatican Museums, for the marbled pattern in the armor.  Lots and lots of these pieces are "pieced together" from more than one old "piece" of statuary.

Talk about conquering your demons...

My family will no doubt recognize this movie quote:  "I have always preferred wildflowers."  I exclaim endlessly over the beauty of the poppies along the wayside; one day Blaine stopped and we picked all of these "from an obliging field".  It was a delight every day to my eyes and my heart.

A very common "ruin" in our house these days:  the remains of artichokes and lemons.

Glories to behold wherever one looks

We work in missionary apartments on a regular basis, fixing things, inspecting for cleanliness.  I got a kick out of this arrangement.  One more missionary tool:  the tablet.

There is a tiny canary in this nest.  What a wonder!

Oh, It Is Wonderful!

Wonderful thing for Friday, 29 May:

One of the great personal benefits of being a Pathway missionary is that I get to teach the Institute class.  The students, Jenny, Elton, Melvin and Daniela, are wonderful; and the course, a new Religion course recently published, "Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel", is beyond marvelous.

Yesterday we talked about how important it is - and how much an example of the condescension of God - that Jesus be born of a mortal mother and of an immortal Father.  An utter marvel.

We talked about how our trust is confirmed and our faith grows as we realize that Jesus was mortal as we are -- and, on the other hand, how our trust and faith are strengthened by the fact that Jesus inherited the traits of his immortal, celestial Father as well.  Writing about it in my journal this morning, I kept setting my pen down to think about it, to ponder the significance of his suffering in the garden.

The garden... "For as in Adam [the Garden of Eden] all die, even so in Christ [the Garden of Gethsemane] shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).

How perfectly He did and does His part:  "For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).

It has all helped me to be more committed to do my little planting, hoeing, dunging, nourishing and harvesting.  He "marked the path and led the way" (Hymns, 195, "How Great the Wisdom and the Love").

Fun thing:

In fact, we were just given a taste of the fruit yesterday:  the oldest daughter of one of our neighbors, who knew us in our most excruciatingly dysfunctional times as a family,  sent an email yesterday:  she is a member of the Church now!

She commented, "Bet you didn't know I was watching..."

The fact that she saw something, was testimony to the power of the Holy Ghost working in the lives of people desperately but prayerfully trying to weed their garden.

Hallelujah!

(our garden after 30 years of effort)

This.is.really.big. "Infinite and Eternal" (Alma 34:10-14)

Wonderful thing for Thursday, 5 February:

Blaine has been working for weeks on his profile for mormon.org.  Yesterday he sent out lots of emails with a link to it.  Some of our children have shared the link on Facebook.

I am enjoying, especially on this mission, the happy harbors of our long voyage together, but sometimes along the way, I wondered why the Lord gave me his approbation to marry Blaine.  Then I would comfort myself by saying that only someone from a family as wonderful and strong as mine could help someone from a family so wounded and pathetic as his.  That was among the first of my own personal obstacles to overcome.  My sister shared with me how once, when Amy was about 16, she had said during a visit, "Your whole family is so stinkin nice!"

It's true, we are soooo nice.  But the "stinkin" part is true too.  When Blaine and I really started looking into the issues at the source of our family problems, my uncle, who was in recovery, warned me that I would have to accept that like people find each other.  In other words, if Blaine was broken, so was I.

Our kids started warning their friends that if they came to visit, they could expect some weird questions from Dad, one of which was, "Is your family dysfunctional?"  If the answer was no, we would just shake our heads for them - because they were in denial.

That's kind of a joke, because there really are functional families...somewhere...but the key, at least from our experience, is this:  functional families are just like dysfunctional families in that we all have problems; functional families talk about them and work to resolve them - that's what makes them functional.

We had so many years of pain.   For several years know, we have been experiencing more and more joy.  Blaine's post, and Tamra's FB post sharing the link, talk about some of the whys.  As for me, I've been working on the "stinkin" part, the part where you go beyond the superficial niceties and are willing to live real life.

Both our families, in fact, are becoming more functional.  It's a great, slow, painful, rewarding, joyful process.  "O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace" (2 Nephi 9:8)!  "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten" (Joel 2:25).

http://www.mormon.org/me/GPBT/Blaine
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/broken-things-to-mend?lang=eng

fun thing:  We skyped with an entire branch council yesterday evening, in La Spezia, about a couple of hours away, sharing our Pathway ppt.  Technology is awesome!