A Poem for a Sunday

By Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

Well crap. Covetousness, too?

Do you ever have those periods of your life when day after day, moment to moment even, you seem to get a clearer view of all the ways you stink at everything you want to be? Yep, I'm right in the middle of one. I think it may be the genesis of progress, or it may just be further evidence of my inability to progress. I'm not sure which. Let me write about a couple of disturbing things going on in my head and see if I can tie them all together at the end.

So, first, the covetousness. My dear sister and her husband just bought a new house. They and their six little kidlets will soon be moving into a spacious but not ostentatious house with a nearly perfect lot. In fact, the whole thing seems so stinking perfect for them that it appears almost miraculous. It's not new, and they will be doing a lot of renovating over the next few years, but it's got good bones, it was a deal, and it just fits them.

And I am jealous.

Yes, once again I am envious of my sister. Which, I know if she read this she would tell me how silly I am, and I am. But I envy her--her good husband, her beautiful children, her house big enough for company and yard big enough for everything, her lovely, chaotic, stay-at-home mother life. When I was 7 I envied her perfectly arranged closet shelves and canopy bed. When I was 12 I envied her bra and nylons, when I was on my mission I envied the breathless, falling-in-love accounts sent in letters. And now, as I'm heading toward 40, I realized today I'm still a silly, jealous mess of a little sister.

The thing is, I don't, and never have, wanted any of those things at her expense. I wouldn't take any of it away from her even if it would magically supply me with everything I feel I so sorely lack. I love her. But why can't I have any of it, too?

See, it's not the kind of covetousness that would move me to take anything from someone else, which is, I think, the least dangerous form of covetousness for most of us. It seems very childish to me to think that you could somehow gain happiness at someone else's expense. I don't want any one else's husband or kids or house or happiness. I just have no idea why I can't have mine.

That, the stealing of someone else's blessings is not the danger in covetousness for me. The danger in my wicked jealousy is not recognizing the abundance in my own life. There's a scripture that I have long both loved and struggled mightily with. In Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, he writes:

"For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound: Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."

I stink at being content. I hold out desires (righteous but dangerous ones) that keep me in this constant state of abasement, hunger and need. And yes, I abound too, but in ways that matter but don't comfort.

I am not ambitious. I'm grateful to have a job because it delivers me from a kind of desperation that has afflicted women for thousands of years. I'm grateful to have opportunities for education because my mind needs to think and work and push. But the daily work of a career and an education doesn't bring me much joy. I dream of cleaning the house everyday, taking care of my babies, and going grocery shopping regularly. With a list. And coupons. I'd rather live an obscure life as a wife and a mother than win awards, prestige or respect in the workplace. Not that I'm winning any awards, prestige or respect in the workplace, but those are the rewards that are available to me, that I am allowed to strive for, and I don't care about any of it. The abundance of my career, and I have been lucky in it, abases me as much or more than it energizes me. What I pour into it leaves me feeling hollow and hungry rather than abundant.

And then I look at my peers--nearly all my friends and colleagues and acquaintances in their thirties who are raising kids and living in a family and I'm both raging jealous and self-loathing that my life resembles them not at all. Horrible, aren't I? Shall I tell you my deepest, darkest secret? When I look at my sister and all that she has and I don't, the only thing I can come up with is that she is far more worthy, and therefore more deserving than I am. She's always been thinner, smarter, prettier, more talented, harder-working, just better. She makes better decisions. She's more obedient. She is what I want to be. And so is pretty much everybody else. And I am not.

Ugh. I know this is not a good way to think, but no matter how hard I try it lurks in the back of my mind and the back of my throat. God's grace does not rest upon me in the form of a family and a home and abundance because I cannot make myself deserving of any of it.

Now, I know that the Atonement of Christ should overcome all of that. Paul continues that passage in Phillipians with this statement: "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." But how does that work for me? I can't change my circumstances, nor can I change how I feel about it, and I've spent most of my adult life shuttling between unsuccessful attempts to do those two things. So, at the center of my unworthiness is this: I still don't trust my Savior. How is this possible?

Luke chapter 12 has an interesting treatise on covetousness and faith. A man asks Jesus to settle an inheritance dispute between him and his brother. Jesus replies with "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth." He goes on and tells a parable, then launches into a well-known passage:

And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.

The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?

And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?

If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

My jealousy of my sister and everybody else is just a symptom of this much larger problem--my lack of faith.

Help, anyone? I'm stuck here. I don't know how to fix this. How do I let go?

P.S. I have lovely single friends in their thirties, and I don't think they are unworthy. I am constantly baffled that they aren't blessed with the husbands and and families and homes that they so richly deserve and so righteously want. Because they are lovely, and obedient and beautiful and overwhelmingly talented and hard working. I don't know how to fix that either, nor do I understand why. For my own sake, knowing my own soul, I could not indict God for what I lack. But, and I know this is blasphemous so I don't actually succumb to the impulse, I am regularly tempted to indict him for their sakes. It is not fair, and there certainly better be some serious, serious compensation for what has been withheld at some point in the future. The sooner the better.

Don't worry. I'll totally understand if you don't want to stand very close to me. I wouldn't want to be next to me when the lightning strikes me down either.

Bum and Peanuts

So, sidewalk chalk can be dangerous. I was just reminded of that by a friend's facebook post, which reminded me of this story, which happened years ago. My sister sent her little girls out with sidewalk chalk to play with the neighbors. About an hour or so later, she heard her daughters and their little friends loudly chanting "Bum and peanuts!"

She found this a little odd, of course, and decided to investigate. Out on her driveway she discovered crude drawings of body parts, one like a curvy w and the other decidedly phallic. There was one little boy in the neighborhood, and in what I can only imagine was a clumsy attempt at asserting his maleness, he began to draw self portraits that the girls didn't understand. When they questioned him about what he had drawn, they misheard his reply, and finding the phrase delightfully absurd, began chanting "bum and peanuts."

Ah, sidewalk chalk. It can be a window to the soul.

And, if you are ever in need of a faux swear word, may I suggest "bum and peanuts."

What would make the world better today? Foursquare!

I read over the last three post titles and realized they betrayed my current state of confusion and insecurity. I don't like to feel confused and insecure, certainly, but more importantly, I don't want to appear confused and insecure. So I'm totally going to pretend I'm over it and change the subject in hopes of deflecting your attention from my woesome failings.

I've been keeping a list in my head of all the abandoned practices from elementary school that I think we should consider employing in adult life. Here's what I've come up with so far:

A. Four square

Admit it, you miss this game. Four square was the best game ever. You could make up utterly stupid rules, and as long as you were winning and called rules fair and square, you were good--double hits, slams, around-the-world. I love that red rubber ball. I think every workplace should have a hallway big enough for a four square and a red bouncy ball tucked away. Then, when everybody's stressed out and sick of each other and nothing is budging no matter how hard we try, everybody gets in line and we play four square and everybody gangs up and slams the boss. Or maybe if we scheduled 15 minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the afternoon. I might suggest this at our next staff meeting.

B. On a related note: Tetherball

C. Art projects: When was the last time you shaved crayons between two sheets of waxed paper, applied a hot iron to melt it, allowed it to cool, and cut shapes out the hang in your window? If you are anything like me, it's been too long. Too damn long.

D. Chorus. Did you have a chorus at your elementary school? Did you join in the early morning shout of patriotic jubilation? I totally did. And we were always singing something like "I'm Proud to Be an American" or "The Candy Man" or "The World is a Rainbow."

Sidenote: When was the last time you saw a rainbow made up of yellow, black and white and brown? That would be the worst rainbow in the history of the light spectrum.

I'm pretty sure my mom just liked getting us out the door a half hour earlier than usual. We also had a children's choir in my ward when I was a kid, and we were delightful, singing such classics as "Where is Heaven?" I'm fairly certain, though, that we all attended practice after Primary anxiously awaiting the strains of "Sing your way home" followed by a treat on the way out the door. Still, I will say this, a resounding declarative statement: We do not sing nearly enough as adults.

E. Carnival/Field day: Every fall and every spring, someone should throw a big party where all we have to do is show up, square dance, and eat at the bake sale. Foot races are optional. I call I'm not in charge of planning anything.

F. Reading time: After lunch, every day, someone should read to us for fifteen minutes. It should be a law of nature, like gravity or the water cycle. It just should happen.

G. Summer break: Totally self-explanatory.

Now, don't think I'm glossing over the indignities of childhood--I remember cafeteria lunches and mean girls and not having control over anything from my wardrobe to my schedule. I just don't know why we threw the baby out with the bathwater. There was some good stuff there that perhaps we should have held on to.

Update: Also, I want to make one of those Valentine's Day mailboxes out out of a shoe box. I don't care about the Valentines, I just want to decoupage a shoe box. Yellow conversation hearts, though, will be happily accepted anytime.

I think I just got adopted by a cat?

She snuck right in and made herself at home, and now she's snoozing on the barstool next to me. Huh. Do I want a cat? Can I handle a cat? Can I possibly turn away this warm little thing who apparently thinks I'm fairly cool in a month during which every other event has nearly convinced me that I'm a rat who perhaps should go dig a hole and pull the dirt in over me? Huh.

I'm pretty sure I just firmly established myself as the token bitter feminist b---- in my graduate school class.

Will I be ridden out of Utah county by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks if I write a blog post containing my true feelings about the Republican National Convention?

I hate politics. I tend to mistrust the motives of pretty much anyone who would want to be president. I'm neither a Democrat or a Republican, and honestly, that is because both parties have ideas with which I fundamentally disagree. When I both search my soul and apply all of my critical thinking skills (which, I freely admit are not stellar, but it's what I got) to the communication on both sides of the political divide, I find myself deeply uneasy. I may have mentioned this before. I preface what I'm about to write with this because I don't want anyone to assume that because I'm criticizing the Republican National Convention, I am casting my lot with the Democrats. I have no doubt I'll have some problems with their pep rally in Charlotte, as well. I just wanted to air out the discomfort I felt this week.

I only watched Ann Romney's speech. I did read Mitt's speech after the fact, and was disappointed. He made a lot of promises (some of which I didn't like at all--his stance on energy concerns me) but not a lot of ideas on how he would accomplish them. That's a problem, I think. He also insinuated that because I have spent my career in public education and a municipal library I am unfit for government. My experience in small business, the realm that apparently is more important than any other human pursuit (except maybe parenthood--gee, I'm SOL on that one too. Do I even have a right to exist?), was demoralizing. Greed and status was the motivating factor in everything my employers did, and I withered while I worked there. Many small businesses do wonderful, productive things for our society. Others don't. Private v. public does not equal good v. evil, and the fact that current Republicans are unable to have a more nuanced conversation about it is more than a little disappointing.

I watched so little of the RNC because I didn't have all that much time to devote to something I find so pointless, especially since every one of Utah's electoral votes will always go to whomever the Republican nominee is. I'd much rather devote my political attention to local government, where it might actually matter. But I made a point of listening to Ann Romney. I didn't love Mrs. Romney's speech. Pretty much everyone I know will disown me for admitting that, but it's absolutely the truth. The part that bothered me the most(at least the one I'm willing to write about publicly) was this: She said "Mitt doesn't like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point." That sentence stopped me in my tracks. 'Dear Sister Romney,' I thought, 'he may not like to make his service and generosity a political talking point, but you just did.' I don't doubt that Mitt Romney has helped people, and served and given of his abundance. But you don't get to have it both ways. It was a boast, and a boast used strategically to boost a political career. Do it or don't, I don't care. But call a spade a spade.

Here's the other thing, and I might just be infected by "class warfare" that the Republicans like to accuse their opponents of fomenting, but every time it comes up how generous the Romneys are, I can't help but think of the New Testament, in Luke, when Christ explains to his disciples how He interprets the scene they are watching at the temple:

1 And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.

2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:

4 For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had. (Luke 21, KJV)

It just comes to mind over and over again during this entire campaign, on both sides of the aisle.

And don't even get me started on Paul Ryan. I don't care how smart your are or how knowledgeable about the budget. Anyone who has ever listed Ayn Rand as a serious philosophical influence is dangerous.

Ugh. I may be writing another critical post soon decrying the Democrats. I may not, though, but only because I don't know if my heart can take it anymore. Today was a bad day in my personal life, and I'm tempted to just dig a hole and pull the dirt over me for good. And the wider world--at least the political one--well, I hold out little hope there for increasing peace and happiness. Here I am again: All that's left for me is on my knees, pleading for something that may not even be within my grasp in this mortal spere.

My mission president's favorite hymn was "Come O Thou King of Kings." I didn't get it then. I do now.

Hope your week was better than mine. Peace.