The Perks of Being a Wifeflower

Okay, that was a really dumb title.
Sorry.

But here's the thing: every time I leave the bathroom light on long enough for Jacob to see it before I can scurry and try to turn it off, I owe him a substantive blog post. He says when he reads my writing, he loves me more. Right now I owe him seven blog posts.

And so, here is the first of many entries wherein I will actually write about the thoughts and problems and mental struggles that betoken my every day living. The following is the transcript of a talk I gave in my ward (that's Mormon for when a lay member presents a sermon to their congregation) a couple weeks ago.

The problem now is that if I start writing about things that I really really care about, then I'll be vulnerable to people who are smarter and meaner than me . But oh well. It's time, you know?

I've included a couple pictures from our stay in Florence, because it is the most inspirational place I've ever been.

Come From Where it May

Sacrament Meeting Talk 6/23/13

Jacob reading at the Accademia

               I have always been a bit of a bookworm. Long before I could read I would insist that “I turn!” the pages when my parents read me stories, and I remember distinctly volunteering my four year old self to “read” picture books to my friends. (I’d beextremely interested now to hear the captions I came up with for the pictures then)
 So, over the years many works of literature have become so precious to me, as to be something like scripture. From many wonderful books have I read, re-read, re-read, filled the margins with scribbled notes, cross-referenced, and memorized quotes to adopt as personal mantras. In works of every genre I’ve learned much of what I know about sin, repentance, redemption, salvation, charity, and the greatest extremes of evil and of human and divine kindness.

As I grew older I discovered the other arts; visual, performing, vocal, instrumental. There was a whole beautiful world of Godly language to hear and to learn to speak! Every day of my arts-filled childhood contained many sermons. So for me, the divide between what was scripture, what officially belonged to the True and Living Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and what was merely inspirational never seemed incredibly material.

When I became a teenager, though, that time when you start to realize that you pretty much know everything, before you go to college and discover that you don’t know anything- -I started to notice that in many of my meetings, lessons, and activities, Gospel truths were usually expressed in very specific language, namely King James English. Very few of the Hymns in the hymn book were actually sung and my favorite authors and poets were usually only quoted in General Conference. As a young girl I began my personal journey, the one we are all continually on because we’re alive, to gain a testimony of what living the restored gospel meant for me and in what languages I accessed its truths.

Now, when we speak of “The Restored Gospel”—of what that phrase really means, it’s difficult to pinpoint what is gospel and what is merely good.

As Joseph Fielding Smith said,“… There is a great fund of knowledge in the possession of men,” ,“that will not save them in the kingdom of God. What they have got to learn are the fundamental things of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” [1]

Many of us audibly breathe a sigh of relief here. Phew, good. “I only need to learn the fundamentals, because the rest is extraneous. I want to be saved in the Kingdom of God“. Reassuring, right? All those novels I consumed as a child were childish things that it’s now time to put away.

I’ve met many people over the years who take this kind of council to fuel their pronouncement that “the only books I read are the scriptures,” or “I only listen to the MoTab and EFY CDS”.

And yet, we embrace as an article of our faith (the thirteenth one to be exact) “ If there is anything ^hvirtuous, ⁱlovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things”.

SEEK is an extremely active verb. It connotes much more than merely absorbing gospel truths through osmosis as we sit in church. In fact, the act of seeking is often very uncomfortable. If something is right in front of you, you can’t seek for it. You can look for it maybe. But seeking implies that it may be far away, or out of reach, soul-stretching or mind-blowing. After you find what you’re seeking, you’ll be different. And that’s uncomfortable. Seeking is a process, a journey, never immediately ended.  Maybe you’re not even sure what it is you’re seeking for, and that requires faith.

So in saying that we seek after anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy are we saying that, as Latter-day Saints, we commit to actively living an uncomfortable life of scraping, stretching, seeking and making ourselves vulnerable and uncomfortable? Yeah, I think so.

Our prophets seers and revelators of the restored gospel take this idea even further:

Brigham Young said, It is our duty and calling, as ministers of the same salvation and Gospel, to gather every item of truth and reject every error. Whether a truth be found with…the Universalists, or the Church of Rome, or the Methodists, the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Quakers, the Shakers, or any other of the various and numerous different sects and parties, all of whom have more or less truth, it is the business of the Elders of this Church…[and I would add members of this church] to gather up all the truths in the world pertaining to life and salvation, to the Gospel we preach, … to the sciences, and to philosophy, wherever it may be found in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people and bring it to Zion.[2]

A highlight of my life at Badia Fiorentina

Joseph Smith said: “One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from where it may.”[3]

And the Lord says, in Doctrine and Covenants 88:118, “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom.”

So here we are, with not only council but a duty and calling to SEEK for truth, well, basically everywhere. Something of a daunting task.

So how do we possibly sift through all the good and bad teachings of the world in books and religions and find the valuable ones that have a rightful and useful place in our understanding of the restored gospel? How do we determine which ones are the best books and which are merely a waste of our time—or worse, detrimental to our spiritual education? How do we avoid the pitfalls of embracing unrighteous philosophies of men mingled with scripture?

As Elder B.H. Roberts of the Seventy famously said, “While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established for the instruction of men; and it is one of God’s instrumentalities for making known the truth yet he is not limited to that institution for such purposes, neither in time nor place. God raises up wise men and prophets here and there among all the children of men, of their own tongue and nationality, speaking to them through means that they can comprehend. … All the great teachers are servants of God; among all nations and in all ages”

All the great teachers are servants of God? How do we distinguish between the good, the great, and the bad? With this kind of council, how do we possibly prioritize our spiritual education??

The answer lies in the topic of this sacrament meeting, which is beautiful in its simplicity: PROPHETS TEACH US TO LIVE THE RESTORED GOSPEL.

Prophets teach us. With so many beautiful, useful truths in religions of the world that we have a duty to seek after and embrace, the Restored Gospel is singular in the fact that we have living, breathing, teaching prophets. Indeed, our Gospel is true and living, meaning it is changing and growing, just like a living human being—like we are. We believe in continuing revelation that is given us through prophets and through the Holy Ghost directly from our Father to us. That’s pretty cool.

I keep on my computer, so it’s always within view, a sticky note that serves as a gentle caution in my insatiable drive to seek after knowledge and beauty. It’s Second Timothy 3:7: Ever learning, never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

As we follow our duty to seek and learn and embrace and discover, we always come back to the beautiful, grounding fundamentals of the gospel, as President Smith reminded us. In making our central study that we base everything else around the words of prophets, both ancient and modern, we will be able to recognize the other truths we are seeking for when we come across them. We’ll recognize godly language elsewhere because we’ll know it so well from the scriptures, from prophets, and from speaking to God ourselves through prayer.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie (1915–85) put it well when speaking to members and nonmembers alike during an area conference in Tahiti: “Keep all the truth and all the good that you have. Do not abandon any sound or proper principle. Do not forsake any standard of the past which is good, righteous, and true. Every truth found in every church in all the world we believe. But we also say this to all men—Come and take the added light and truth that God has restored in our day. The more truth we have, the greater is our joy here and now; the more truth we receive, the greater is our reward in eternity.” ^[4]

I have a personal testimony of the limitless beauties and truths that exist for us to discover in churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams, libraries, concert halls, museums, movie theaters, and in all the limitless languages of divinity in the world around us. I know that we’ll have a more complete appreciation of the restored gospel if we better come to know and understand all of God’s children and recognize the light of Christ that pervades and infuses all of His creation.

I love this Gospel with my whole soul and I come to love it more the more I study, seek, and embrace truth, “come from where it may.”

---

[1] Bruce R. McConkie, comp., Doctrines of Salvation (Bookcraft, 1954), 1:291.

[2] Journal of Discourses 7:283

[3] Sermon of Joseph Smith, 9 July 1843 (Sunday Morning), in Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1980), p. 229

[4]  Bruce R. McConkie, comp., Doctrines of Salvation (Bookcraft, 1954), 1:291.

Springtime for Hitler

Don't think I'm being weird with this title, it's just the song from The Producers that was stuck in my head the whole time we were in Berlin.
You know... theatre nerd....yeah.

ANYWAY.

One of the first things I noticed about Berlin was that "um, I think the whole city is under construction" (my words). I was yet to learn that the city is known, in fact, as "the eternal building site" (our delightful tour guide, Michael's, words).

The other thing I noticed is that no one sleeps and no one appears to go to work. These impressions were smilingly confirmed by a chatty local on the plane back to London. 
I also noticed currywurst pretty quickly.

What's more famous than Checkpoint Charlie? Checkpoint Curry, of course!

It's basically a hot dog slathered in ketchup, mayonnaise, and a sprinkle of curry powder. Wait... that's exactly what it is. I won't reveal what my sentiments on the dish are, but all I can say is...well, it's historically significant I guess.

 The third thing I noticed is the preponderance of this little grafittied detail on the upper lip of poster people.

I guess we don't really know all that much about Edward's political aspirations, now do we?

If Twilight isn't your thing, then how about the Ishtar Gate? We're talking about the gate to ancient Babylon. Like, Babylon Babylon.

Jacob was so excited, I'm pretty sure he wet himself. I'm just excited that he's growing a beard.

Or the Pergamom alter, perhaps? It's stunning.

I would have photshopped myself out, but then there would have been a hole in the stairs....

Um... and we saw some super ancient porn.

 Don't look too closely.      

        

...Speaking of Hitler, Berlin is just impressive on so many levels. I didn't much know what to expect of the city. I'd been to Rotterdam, which was also completely bombed out in World War II, and to me it felt distinctly lacking in identity or local flavor. It was all new buildings, new people, and a new future to look forward to without the painful inconvenience of harping on history. To me,it was a city that had been murdered, and though it did rise from the ashes, it wasn't a reincarnated phoenix. It was a new bird altogether, and one who wasn't lookin back. Nu uh.

The second largest remnant of the Berlin Wall

But Berlin is different. Eternal building site and all, it is, indeed, an adolescent phoenix determined to rebuild itself. But it isn't about to forget where it came from or what it's been through. I was surprised to see the way the city has deliberately left ugly monuments to ugly bits of history. A simple wall, for instance-- broken and scribbled-- stands as a silent, poignant reminder.

 The people petitioned to protect Stalin era propaganda emblazened on Nazi buidlings which are now used by the German government. These people don't ever, ever want to forget. 

 Most impressive of all, though, is the fact that the city has blocked out this huge area of prime real estate in central Berlin to memorialize the murdered Jews of the holocaust. Though the memorial itself is both loved and criticized for all sorts of reasons, its existence is, to me, such a sign of deep, profound maturity that I couldn't but help leave the city with an awful lot of respect. There's no sweeping under rugs in Berlin.

 They deliberately leave bullet holes in the gorgeous collinades of museum island. Rather than being angry, ashamed, or apathetic, they let history remain the horrible scar it is. They live with it every day so that they can live better, fuller, more peaceful lives.


They've learned.

And it's beautiful.

The Brandenburg Gate

The Berliner Dom

My sweetheart

Checkpoint Charlie

Please note how delightfully apropos it is that directly behind the entrance to West Berlin and the stronghold of American power in the Soviet world is... a McDonalds.

The Altes Museum

The River Spree

Site of the famous zip line escape over the Berlin Wall

 Berlin love you? I guess.

The Dom again. I can't help how lovely it is.

So Berlin is the eternal building site, not because they want to cover up history, but because they know how to deal with it. The bombed out building in the middle of all these cranes is going to stay, even though a high-end shopping mall is going up around it. I love that. I want to learn from Berlin. I want to keep reminders of the ugly and the brutal and the hard, evil warfare in my own life so I'll have an even bigger reason to rebuild.

But, this wouldn't be an end to the kind of posts I've been doing lately if I didn't include a cute picture of Jacob and I being in love in Europe. So here it is:

Oh crap. 

I'm acting like a blogger.

Love, wurst, and a new view in a new place,

Banana

back.

I'm getting feisty in my old age.

 I am very quickly irked, it seems, by everything. Racism, sexism, general rudeness, road rage, people who scam elderly people, genocide, my own intellectual limitations, everything... zero tolerance. And it gets to the point where it makes it very hard to be happy about anything because pretending to be Little Susie Sunshine when everyone else seems to be hurting feels insensitive and fake. I vowed to never use my acting skills to be someone I'm not. There are just so many things to care  about everywhere. So many injustices.

Sooo...what right have I to go on a lovely little bike ride in the sun and read some poems and just feel all lovely and tickled and ignore all the disgusting pride and arrogance and cruelty out there????

Well. It also seems like a disservice on my part to be Little Susie Raincloud all the time, you know? I'm not contributing anything by just caring and getting pissed and being rude to everyone because I think they are just preserving their comfort by ignoring important human rights violations. Oh dear. Listen to me! 

I decommissioned this blog for a while because I was disgusted with myself. I do NOT want to be another post-pictures-of-myself-every-day-so-I-maintain-a-carefully-constructed-illusion-of-what-my-life-is-like-and-everyone-can-envy-me-and-validate-me-with-their-comments-and-giveaway-entries blogger. And since I began to sort of lean that way I pulled the plug. Straight up.

BUT. Here's the point of all this ranting. No matter how much I care, I can't solve the world's problems. No sirree. And by  acting all put-out all the time about things that really are awful, I'll just become a negative person and you just can't keep friends that way, not even the ones that really love you.

What to do then? Well, I've decided to keep caring. Stay human. But a big part of being human, I've decided, is also loving despite things. Not just loving the underdog, but loving everyone. Loving women who PREFER to be controlled and don't want to think about the alternative. Loving grandparents who were raised in the 30's and 40's and really didn't have much of a chance to not be racist. Just loving.
Because, as I discovered, being intolerant of intolerant people is still intolerance. And probably worse since I consider myself so "enlightened." Being narrow-minded about narrow-mindedness is the ultimate hypocrisy, I think. I am going to change.

I am going to keep blogging because words and pictures and pretty things are my life force, and that's okay. If I can make the world a teensy bit prettier by dwelling on the beautiful things I discover, there's no shame in that, is there? Sharing is caring. Or so my childhood taught me.

So. The point is... I'm back. Come back with me?

banana

Sometimes...

I feel like

all I require to be super-human

is a good dose of sunshine

and some caffeine.

But then I am instantly reminded of my mortality, usually by running into something.

oh well, 
Banana

P.S. Look at this dreamy boy I got to like me!

[blurry photo by Brookie  on my Holgie in the front yard]

Perhaps there's another reason I feel capable of super-humanity? 
Just a thought.

I'm not saying this is good...

...but I wrote a poem.

And I'm going to share it.

It's called "By the Fountain" because I wrote it by a fountain on a magically stormy day that was dripping with this inexplicable feeling of...significance.

And so I sat down and wrote a poem just as the drops fell to meet me.

And the thunder said hello.

By the Fountain  10/4/10

The sky seems so present

that the earth slips away

and the conquering clouds crowd in.

and the solitary people rush in

to clasp eyes and levy the distance

between

with unuttered hellos.

and the impatient thunder bellows

to be released

from its prison of professionalism.

The air feels so heavy

that the eyes, they drop

and splash off the bold face of possiblity.

ping, ping, ping.

We clatter inside to escape

the noisey adventure of feeling.

And without,

it begins to rain.

love.

banana.

Opus 37

I’m really feeling music today. It could possibly be my radically enhanced emotional state, not much altered even by the slight overdose on Midol I might have had this morning.

Or it could just be that music is what brings life to my veins and thus oxygen to my brain and clarity to my eyes and richness to my senses. It always has, after all. I’ve been ignoring music; skulking around, hiding behind corners when I see it coming. And I’m not sure why. 

I’ve just been so afraid lately. But it’s hard to say exactly what I’m afraid of. Maybe it’s nothing. That is, maybe I’m scared of dissolving into nothingness. Amounting to nothing. Being nothing. Or at least not being what I always dreamed I would be and what I’m now doing nothing to become. And returning to the piano with stiff, forgetful fingers and forcefully shaking my startled voice awake, which comes out creaky from neglect, is scary when I’m already so scared.

And yet, today I’m craving only one of those magical corners with a small open window and eighty-eight slightly dusty keys. They’ve always been such a refuge- such a sanctuary- waiting patiently to absorb every moment of disappointment or frustration or euphoria with life and its potential for being lived. It’s all there in those keys and my fingers that know them so well, even if they’re a little awkward at first reuniting. But like any true friends, they soon know they never really spent time apart, after all. They quickly remember one another’s idiosyncrasies; their shortcomings and their greatest abilities. Their mutual desire to produce something worth listening to. Worth getting lost in. Worth feeling.

So I sit here in this stark, florescent box of a facility, as far away from that corner as you could really get, listening to the genius of Dustin O’Halloran and Iris Litchfield with itching fingers. RLS bouncing my knees all over the place under my desk, my feet blindly bumbling around, searching for the pedals. But my insides feel warm and sparkly with the anticipation of greeting one of my oldest and dearest friends. Perhaps the most loyal friend of all, always waiting patiently, always knowing that someday I’ll come back to raise the blinds and crack open the rain streaked window, to stroke the old worn oak bench, lift the cover, inhale a deep, nervous breath, arrange my cold, frightened fingers into the key of G and…

Play.

-Banana 

 [These photos are from a  special day in Hawaii about a year and a half ago. Taken by Bremen McKinney and me and featuring Tessa Brady and my hands, feet, and occasional indiscernible reflection]

Bananarama and a belated adventure log

I just realized that I am, perhaps, more often called "Banana" than my actual name ["Anna"] by my intimate friends .
Does this make it an alias?
Does that make me a spy?
groovy.

Speaking of intimate friends... remember how I went on that little trip to Yellowstone the weekend before last?
I do! And here's the proof:

[note: these pictures were taken on something of a crappy camera, and I don't yet have pictures of the really gorgeous stuff. Don't you fret. I will deliver.)

best friend, Mary Button. She's like a sister, mother, therapist, publicist, and girlfriend. All in one.

Guess who showed up? [No, the answer is not Jesus.]

He's actually a very attractive person. He just has to look like a crazed lumberjack/ Hebrew prophet for a movie role.... so, really, it's not much different from dating Brad Pitt.

Love, thunder, and more Deet in the mouth than you could possibly comprehend as an outsider,
Banana