More, Savior, Like Thee

Originally written September 11, 2004

Three years ago, I watched with the rest of the world as the hate of some men brought down the Twin Towers and destroyed the lives of many people and families in one life shaking event.

The morning had started out crazy as most morning are in a house with four little people. Our fourth child had been born three weeks earlier. I was not completely recovered from that experience and I was sleep deprived like most moms of new babies. That morning, I busily tried to get all four of the kids dressed and out the door for my daughter's second dance class which started at 9:15 MDT.

About 8:45 the phone rang. My dear friend in Texas, Kelly, called to let me know that something big was happening. To be honest, I didn't really have the time or the emotional strength to care. We talked for a few minutes while I finished dressing everyone and then out the door the kids and I went. We arrived at dance only a few minutes late and then I took time to breathe and figure out what was going on back East.

I remember turning on the van radio and listening to Peter Jennings talk about these planes that had flown into buildings. My brain struggled to wrap around and truly understand this momentous disaster. At that point, I'm not sure that many of us in the country really understood what was going on. The other early memory that I have is of running into Idaho Camera to drop off 35mm film to be developed. They had a television on there. I saw footage of the planes flying into the towers and the towers collapsing.

Then I went home. My oldest had afternoon kindergarten. I got him lunch and kept watching the coverage of the terrorist attack. It was surreal. I remember seeing the planes crash into the buildings over and over and still it didn't seem possible that anyone could get on a plane and fly it, themselves, and hundreds of innocent people to their deaths purposely. I saw the footage of the towers coming down. The dust and debris rolling endlessly. I saw people crying and staring. Still my mind couldn't comprehend this huge tragedy caused completely by human hate.

In the days that followed I tried, with the rest of the country to understand what had just happened. I also slipped, like many others, into a fog of depression. I wasn't doing very well physically and emotionally to begin with. The fourth baby's birth had been a bit of a surprise right from the beginning. Then when he arrived, the rest of the family started into a bought of stomach and intestinal flu. Tad was the only one to escape the sickness, and he tried his best to keep us all going,  and while he was able to take some time off work still pulled at him too.

It had been a busy and rough three weeks of struggle right up to September 11, and I wasn't in any shape to deal with the emotions that a major terrorist attach on my country brought into my life. But I had no choice in the matter.

I spent several weeks walking around wondering why, such a terrible thing had happened and trying to find the energy to work through it and move on emotionally. About the end of September, I came out of the fog induced by pregnancy, child birth, sickness, and terrorist disasters. Finally I began to be able to deal with life and process the events that occurred in Pennsylvania,Washington DC, and most of all New York.

Through the ensuing months, I began to be able to consider the events of September 11th and the thousands of years of history that lead up to them. Yet, I still don't feel satisfied and settled.

Nothing on earth, created by mankind, can fix the holes that hate rips. Nothing can truly help me understand how men and women harboring that much hate could be raised and allowed to unleash that searing hate on the world. I do not understand how there can be mothers and fathers in the world, so wrapped up in their own beliefs, culture, and selves that they could be intentionally cruel to people they don't even know in such a final way.

I simple don't understand that way of thought. And I feel pretty powerless before it's fury.

But I have determined that I can do something. Perhaps it is very small, but I feel sure in its own way, it is powerful.

I can love others, one person at a time. I can teach my children, and other children about caring for others. I can continue a quest in myself and others to move forward toward understanding and love of others even when we don't agree or even accept what they stand for. Other people have intrinsic worth. I can teach and show respect for that eternal principle.

Humans have faults. Humans are all different. Humans just won't always agree, but they can still find a way to value something in another human as small as that something might appear.

I can be a positive influence for good in the lives of others. I can value the people I call Children of God; in other words, everyone. And I can smile at people. It takes very little effort to smile, but it does so much good for so many people.

On September 11, 2001, so much was destroyed through hate. I may never in my whole life touch as many people as those few men did in their moments of angry destruction, but I am going to continue to move forward with love anyway. I am going to continue smiling at people, continue plucking the unkind and unworthy thoughts from my mind, continue striving to be a builder instead of a basher.

I add my voice to that of Phillip Paul Bliss, the write and composer of More Holiness Give Me:

More holiness give me,

More strivings within,

More patience in suff'ring,

More sorrow for sin,

More faith in my Savior,

More sense of his care,

More joy in his service,

More purpose in prayer.

More gratitude give me,

More trust in the Lord,

More pride in his glory,

More hope in his word,

More tears for his sorrows,

More pain at his grief,

More meekness in trial,

More praise for relief.

More purity give me,

More strength to o'ercome,

More freedom from earth-stains,

More longing for home.

More fit for the kingdom,

More used would I be,

More blessed and holy--

More, Savior, like thee.

Center on Christ

I grew up in a tough place. The climate was severe. Hot summers. Cold winters, and wind - Life draining wind all the time.

The Rock Springs, Wyoming economy seemed (and still seems) to be in a continual boom/bust cycle. The major careers in the area revolved and still revolve around resource extraction, also known as coal and trona mining. (Oil and natural gas extraction caused another boom starting in about 2000, after I was gone.)

The Blair brothers opened the first coal mine in Rock Springs in 1868 just before the arrival of the Union Pacific Railroad line. At one point Rock Springs and the surrounding Sweetwater County hosted 130 operating mines.

Coal mining fueled the railroads and the local economy, but took a hit in the 1890 depression. But mining rallied again in 1920, allowing men to make a larger wage of $8/ day in the mines bringing out coal. According to a Wyoming history essay $8 was the equivalent of $91/day in 2012. The Great Depression hit the area again, but due to neighbors helping neighbors, many weathered that storm and came out the other side.

Of course, Rock Springs was not always a neighborly place to live. For a rather small and desolate place, Rock Springs attracted all types of people. Robert Leroy Parker aka Butch Cassidy worked on several of the ranches that surround the town and he spent a brief time as a butcher in town, hence the nickname Butch. He left without causing problems in the little town.

Yet Butch was just a small note in the 1880 history of the town. The big news, that I was even taught in fourth grade, involved the Chinese Massacre. For a town that often seemed to embody cultural diversity, the Massacre was a huge black spot.

It happened on September 2, 1885. White miners attacked the Chinese miners who had been brought in by the railroad to help work the mines. When the conflict ended, twenty-eight Chinese were dead, fifteen were wounded, and hundreds more had fled the town. Most of the whites who caused the problem left soon after. And fortunately not all the Chinese fled, because Rock Springs boasted some of the best Chinese food anywhere thanks to their descendants a hundred years later.

In the 1950's when trains switched to diesel and cars took over the roads, the coal industry took a huge hit, but at that same time the largest known deposit of  trona was discovered. Out of work coal miners easily switched over to working in the trona mines east of Green River.

And again because of coal the Rock Springs economy boomed when in the 1970's, workers flooded into the area to build the billion dollar Jim Bridger Power Plant which still supplies coal fired power (electricity) to parts of the northwest, including the Idaho house where I currently live.

The climate was tough. The jobs were hard. And the people were rough.

Money flowed out of the mines. Much of it into the pockets of people who ran the railroad, but because coal was vital to the rail industry, large amounts also went back to the workers. Many of the people of Rock Springs came as immigrants from Europe and Asia to work in the mines. Many had money because they were miners. Others provided services to miners. Some services legal (food, housing, education). Some not so (prostitution and drugs).

The town was in a perpetual boom/bust cycle, and so were the people.

Like I said, the people were rough. But mostly they were good. Many believed in God. Many went to church. Rock Springs had many denominations: Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Episcopal, Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventist, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Latter-day Saints, Baptists Free Evangelical, Congregational, and Jehovah Witness.

A history of the Catholic Church in Rock Springs 

written by one of my high school English teachers, 

Gloria Tomich can be found here.

Some went to church every Sunday. Some went for Christmas and Easter. Some just claimed a religion but never really went. Some didn't claim anything and ridiculed the those who did. And probably that is what made all of them who they were. Because, despite the ever popular belief that God doesn't matter, people have to have something to hold on to. They have to root themselves in some kind of bedrock. Center themselves firmly with faith in something. Otherwise the whims of the world and that continually blasting wind will blow you away.

It took me years to come to an understanding of what exactly helped me get through my teens, in that place, with some people who were quite good, some who were quite confused, and some who were just plain evil. (I say this with the authority of a girl who went to school with multiple murders. Some were just stupid kids who walked the halls of my high school during the days and partied in the hills on the weekend. Not all of them and the passengers in their trucks made it home. Another who I sat in front of in chemistry was just a messed up, drunk and abandoned kid. Then there was the one who had us all a bit terrified that one week in winter; he was bad news.)

So what was it that helped?

Let me tell you a childhood memory. I went to elementary school back in the olden days when they  actually had swing sets, slides, and merry go rounds on the playgrounds. And not only that they put them on black top. No spongy rubber or bark for us. I loved the swings, kind of liked the slides, but spent most of fourth grade on the merry go round. Ours was red.

We of course liked to hang onto the bars and lean back with our feet on the edge. Or better yet sit on the bar with a foot hooked around the standards near the edge and essentially do a back bend. If you were really good, your long hair could drag the ground. And yes the thing was spinning the whole time.

It wasn't safe. It was crazy. But we did it. (Okay my hair never touched the ground. That was TOOOO SCARY!)

Many years later I was thinking back on that experience and the tough times that were a part of growing up in Rock Springs schools and it occurred to me that when somebody stood in the center of the merry go round (not that we did it much), it was much less likely that they would go flying off into space, crashing disastrously on the black top. And if they sat down in the center and held on focusing on staying right there. They moved very little.

For me becoming centered on Christ and His standards was the thing that kept me from flying off into the arms of disaster. Did I want to be more popular? Yes. Was I willing to stand up let go of the standards and try and hold onto with my fingertips and toes on the edge like many of my friends seemed to be doing where the wind could grab you and batter you. No. I really wasn't.

And that saved me from pain. Sure I was kind of lonely some times. And sometimes I cried. Definitely I felt left out and odd, but all of those feelings ended when I left and went to college with people who could have fun without drinking, drugging, or giving up a part of themselves for someone's momentary pleasure.

Because I stayed pretty much stuck to the center, I had none of the habits and broken relationships to move past.

So looking back, am I glad I came from such a colorful and varied place? Yes. Am I grateful for all the people I knew there, many who were kind and good examples to me and some who were kind and rotten examples? Yes.

But mostly -- I am glad that I don't have that stupid wind to fight any more.

I am stronger because of where I came from. I am stronger because of all the people who taught me good and bad. I am stronger because I had to constantly battle against the wind both figuratively and literally. I am stronger because I clung to Christ. I cling still.

Bridges to Belonging

Fifth and sixth grade brought friendship with peers into my life. I started to feel like I belonged. I started to feel important.

I'd gone to elementary school with a large group of girls. Learned to make friends with them. We went to each others homes. We had parties. It was fun.

Yet we had moments that signaled the problems to come. More than one of us had leadership abilities. In fifth and sixth grade I could feel the tension between the different girls who wanted to lead. Heck I was one of them, fighting practically invisible battles to be chief.

So off we went to White Mountain Junior High and racing hormones. I don't remember when it started, but early in the first semester Liz decided that she was done with Kim. (I have changed all of their names.)

She, Liz, probably thought she had good reason to exclude Kim from our lunch table. Kim's family was imploding. Divorce, drugged out older siblings, and a total lack of family values were all involved, but Kim herself was salvageable if she'd had friends inviting her to a safe, higher place. Or maybe she would still have run off to be a bar girl.

I tried to convince the group to be kind and make room for her at our lunch table, and the next day I found no room there for me.

Painful doesn't even begin to describe the level of feelings I experienced. I had worked so hard to be kind and keep everyone involved when Liz had tried to take over and run things her way in elementary schools. She'd had mean moments then and few of us had avoided being in her sights. Yet despite the  efforts I'd made for them in the past, none of them went out on a limb to save me and insist that I get a spot at lunch.

I was crushed, and worse I had to figure out how to gracefully find another place to eat each day.

I eventually found a lonely girl, new to the school, who moved after that year. Each day I began eating with her. We spent time at each others homes. She taught me more about black eye liner than I ever needed. And we were friends.

The next semester, my schedule changed and I was now eating third lunch. A whole different group of people was there in the lunch room during the last lunch period.A whole different group who had come from other elementary schools. A whole new group who welcomed me in at lunchtime.

Finally after months of struggling alone, I felt surrounded by friends again. I felt like I belonged.

Bridges to the Past

Last night in the midst of doorbells dinging to announce the arrival of amazingly clad beggars of sweetness, I finished reading Bridge to Terabithia for the second time. The first time I read it, I was a fifth grader just like the characters in the story.

Fifth grade was a big year for me. I was an extremely shy child. Kindergarten went okay, but by first grade and second grade, I was so stressed out by the social scene, that I regularly threw up in order to avoid school. Fortunately I was smart enough to keep up academically, but I was an emotional basket-case when it came to fitting into the group of kids at school.

In third grade an awesome teacher helped me come out of my shell by allowing me to spend most recesses talking to her during playground duty. She was probably bored to death, but that understanding ear made all the difference. In fourth grade, my leadership skills started to slowly emerge thanks to the help of another teacher. By fifth grade, the crippling effects of shyness were in the past and I had become part of the group.

But fifth grade brought more challenges. Now I was part of the group, but each individual member was growing and exerting their experience and ideas on where we all should be going. Sometimes that lead us to being kind to one another and others outside the group. Sometimes it didn't.

The fifth grade teachers swapped students for different subjects to level the classes. My homeroom teacher, LaPrele Robins, was a gracious, warm woman who loved math and reading cook books. She was a grandma who grew geraniums in the classroom and loved all her students. She taught me everything except reading. Ms. (the first Ms. I ever had) Harrison was single. She loved literature and probably loved teaching, but she mostly scared me to death.

We read The Lemming Condition, Rabbit Hill, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Bridge to Terabithia independently as part of our reading curriculum. Then we were required to create a project to express our experience with the book. I hated those projects. Even now I'd rather write or talk about my feelings, but glue, glitter, paint, or paper mache was the requirement.

Despite the fact that I was basically petrified to be in her class for that hour every day, Ms. Harrison assigned books that I loved reading. Still this second time through Bridge to Terabithia shows me that I really didn't get a very deep understanding of the themes of those books. I reread The Lemming Condition in the last couple years too. I think she was making a statement about the condition of fifth - ninth grade girls in general with Lemming and Bridge, but I totally missed that the first time around.

Bridge is about a boy named Jesse who doesn't fit into his family and doesn't really feel important or cared for at school. Leslie, a girl, moves in down the road. Jesse's plan for the year was to be The Fastest Fifth Grade Runner. Leslie runs faster. Jesse finds himself back down in the unrecognized masses, but then Leslie, who has been trying to reach out to him as a friend, finally makes it through his defenses. Together they create a world and begin find a place to belong. There is more to the story, but you should read it and experience it yourself if you haven't already.

Pre and middle teens, girls especially, are brutally unkind to each other. They are trying to find themselves and define their place in space. The way they often do that is by crushing someone else and taking their space. That all is dealt with in this book.

I had those same experiences in fifth and sixth and seventh grade. And again in tenth. It was hard. I learned somewhere along in there that I have infinite worth regardless of what the group thinks, says, or does. They may not be listening to or following me, but that doesn't make my ideas or direction wrong. And their direction isn't necessarily wrong for them either. But it can be really hard if you know that you aren't suppose to be following them. And worse if they bar you from following them. Rejection stinks.

Trek Post --- The End

The other day, Brother C asked me if I had fun on Trek. I find that fun isn't the right word to describe the experience of Trek. Hard and hot, dusty and dirty, worthwhile, amazing, and "push you to the edge of your own personal type of difficult" might be better ways to describe Trek.

For me the difficulty and the joy in Trek came from being responsible for eight other people, people younger and mostly less experienced with “outdoor adventure” than the folks I normally go out with on these types of trips.

I had prepared myself by walking about five miles a night several nights a week in the months before. I read about pioneers and pondered to understand why we go on Trek as modern day Saints.

I came to the conclusion that it is for several reasons: 1) To show us that we are capable of doing physically hard things. 2) To remind us that others are around to help us through hard things. And 3) To help us understand that having and living the Gospel is worth giving up everything, including your life.

So out we all went into the dust and heat of the Owyhee Desert, dressed as pseudo pioneers to pretend for a few days and gain more perspective on what is really important. And one thing that was highly important to me was to return my young charges to their parents in one -- unblistered, and unsunburned piece.

Life on the trail went along its dusty way and was pretty good and easy for me. I was blessed with a family of quiet but strong and amazing youth, with whom I would be thrilled to spend another long weekend, somewhere beside the desert pushing a handcart. They are excellent young people who have the talent and abilities to do well in their lives.

I was tired and ready to be off my feet the by second day, but I was happy, because I knew I only had one more day to get through and one more meal to cook. And while that was true,  the third day turned out to be the hardest for me.

By the third day, I was somewhat dehydrated. I was worried about two of my “sons”, N and S, who were struggling with walking in the heat, but fortunately building relationships with two wonderful members of the Bishopric. I wondered about the strength and stamina of my husband and Z, who had literally hauled the cart together for most of the way. I felt concern for the two absolutely amazing young girls, S and H, who spent nearly the whole trip being the cart brakes. I was worried about MW's feet and MS’s blood sugar. And I wondered if CS was having any fun at all.

Maybe the last mile of trail was planned to be a metaphor for life. It certainly became one to me. I saw it as the last part of my journey in this painful Trek life. The celestial “green weedy grass” kingdom was before me. I wanted to move through this veil of tears and get on with things like resting in the shade and drinking ICE WATER. (Seen any old people with the same basic desire lately?) But we kept stopping. And Stopping. And STOPPING… And grumbling.

Finally we saw the people on the other side of the river. 

Our dead. 

Waving at us. 

Cheering us on.

 It was heartening. 

Until I realized that we were not finished with the Trek yet. Grumble.

We had to rescue those waving dead people.  Grumble. Grumble. GRUMBLE!!!

This was not on my list of things to do today. (Let's not even go into the possible parallels with getting oneself to the temple to do work for the kindred dead.)

My attitude was less than cheerful as I walked down toward the water to listen to the vignette about the river crossing. I had to scold myself and say a little prayer for strength. Thankfully God loves all his children, even the grumpy, grumbly ones. He sent a cooling breeze almost immediately and my emotions were softly soothed.

I was able to stand patiently waiting for this last piece of Trek trail life to end.

Because I had been reluctant to even go to the river, (yes I was seriously entertaining thoughts of picking up the blasted cart myself and walking alone into Hy Cliffs), I was near the back of the group at the river. When I turned around, I discovered that the parents of all the youth on Trek, being unable to contain their excitement to see their kids, snuck up behind us.

I cannot truly express the euphoria that swept over my body as I turned and saw them. I was no longer responsible for these young people or the cart!

As far as I was concerned any or all of them could have had the cart to push and pull, but my daughter, who was finally recovered from the up and down blood sugar levels, wanted me to be in the yoke with Tad “like the picture on our Trek shirt”, so I want to publicly thank Z for graciously giving up his rightful spot, and allowing me to take it.

I want to also thank TM, RL, and anyone else who pushed on the sides and back to get us the last little way into camp. (I couldn’t see you, and at the time I didn’t care, but I felt your help.) I also am grateful for CA watching over MS on that last day when she needed medical help. Thank you to CH, who during that last difficult day, became our adopted son for a few hours and blessed us all with his pushing and braking talents. 

Appreciation also goes to M and V for taking such good care of E, my own fair skinned boy, who returned with no sunburn or problem. And C and B for watching out for D. I never worried about them.

And finally to my visiting teacher-- Thanks for packing your dishpans...and sharing.

Rhubarb Rapsody

Two years ago, my friend Terese gave me a rhubarb plant to put in my yard.

I planted it in an empty hole just in front of the air conditioning unit. Then left it to grow.

I'd never grown rhubarb before. I 'd never cooked with it either.

Last spring, I made Rhubarb Muffins for the first time. Oh yum.

It is Terese's LOW FAT version of the Taste of Home Recipe. They look like this.

They taste like heaven.

Here is the recipe:

RHUBARB NUT MUFFINS


1½ C all-purpose flour
¾ C packed brown sugar
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

2 Tbsp oil
¼ C applesauce
1 egg
½ C buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 C diced fresh or frozen rhubarb
½ C chopped nuts (if desired)


TOPPING:
¼ C packed brown sugar
¼ C chopped nuts (I like pecans)
½ tsp ground cinnamon

1.  Preheat oven to 375°.  Prepare muffin tin (grease).
2.  Combine dry ingredients in large bowl.
3.  Combine wet ingredients and add to dry, stirring just
    until moistened.
4.  Fold in rhubarb (and nuts, if using).  Fill muffin tin
    cups.
5.  Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over     muffins.
6.  Bake for 13-18 minutes or til they test done.  
Yield:  About 12 muffins