Branches

One of my favorite scriptures about Jesus Christ is John 15:5:

I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

It’s a radical and controversial claim. Certainly we can imagine plenty of people doing plenty of good without ever believing in or following Christ. However, Jesus Christ is here declaring, without reservations, that unless a person abide in Him, anything one does, as magnanimous or kind or heart-warming as it may be, is nothing. "You cannot enter in at the strait gate...by your dead works. (D&C 22:2)

Of course a person, any person, will be duly rewarded for his good works, and one does not need to accept Christ in this life in order to receive some reward. But without Him, at best our acts are only as temporary as the earth, which has an end. Moses says, "Now I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed." (Moses 1:10) Only Jesus can offer us more than nothing, and he does so by connecting us to him.

The gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is meant to connect us to Christ. We live in an age that is very concerned with the idea of being connected:  we connect to the internet, connect to facebook, to our iphones; we try to connect to people, ideas, social movements, news. But for all our hours spent connected to this world, there are those quiet moments when we look inside ourselves and feel a spiritual disconnection in our souls, a yearning for the presence of God.

Try yoga. Go to India. Eat really decadent ice cream while watching a sunrise. They could offer you some very real peace in body and mind. But overcoming the spiritual disconnection that is part of our existence on earth requires something much more extreme, something that has transcended and triumphed over every possible malady in this world: the resurrection and atonement of Jesus Christ.

Still Small Voice

The months before I left on my mission, I felt confused and frustrated. I had been through a rough year away from home, and I doubted my faith. My mission papers were in and I was waiting for my call, but at that time I did not want to go.

The internet was a fairly new thing then (crazy, I know), and during the past year I had been studying and reading and questioning online. I felt unsettled. It was not that I heard anything new--my Dad had always talked freely about the big issues of the Church with us--but as I seriously considered the arguments, embracing the possibility of doubt that combined with my own personal concerns, I felt lost. There was an unending supply, page upon page of articles and blogs and websites and reasons why my spiritual feelings and knowledge were delusional.  It made my beloved, tried and tested faith seem unreasonable somehow.

I remember at first that it was almost liberating to hear and read things that challenged my faith. I always loved the intellectual side of the gospel, and I liked to see how my faith stood up to argument. After a while, though, I found myself mulling over my doubts more than my faith, and the hope that had buoyed me up so much, all of that optimism that had grown up within me, had waned to almost nothing. As I waited for my mission call, I was to the level of crisis, coupled with other circumstances that made me doubt seriously my future as a member of the church.

One day in early summer, I drove several miles to a lake to contemplate how to eliminate the struggle. Death seemed like a possible option, but running away sounded nice too. Bear in mind that I am occasionally prone to melodrama and so, sitting alone in my car, I breathed out my ultimatum in a storm of anger and frustration to God, yelling about promises unfulfilled, and faith unrewarded:  I wanted answers, or else I would die. I swore. I remember this experience vividly. After I sat for about an hour in my car in an exhausted stupor, staring at the waves through my tears, there came a feeling of peace and love and understanding that crept up on me gently. It was the Holy Ghost, that quiet comforter, and He filled me with love and told me to return home. I knew at that moment that I was not alone, that He knew me, and that I was where he wanted me to be. I drove back with a feeling of peace about my future in The Church that has never since left me for very long. When I walked in the door, my mission call was lying on the kitchen table. I was able to accept it.

Elijah

After Elijah the prophet had fled for his life, leaving behind his calling to preach, he “went a day’s journey into the wilderness…and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4). After he had been fed and watered by the Lord for forty days living in a cave, the Lord said, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” and He commanded Elijah to

     "stand upon the mountain before the Lord. And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

     And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" (Kings 19:9-12).

I believe that after all the storms of discussion and frustration and studying and searching, and all the social and political movements and jabbering unrest that I participated in and went through, after all of that, there came to me the quiet voice of truth, spiritual truth, the kind that nourishes and uplifts the soul and allowed me to continue on in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Lord was not in the fire, or the wind, or the earthquake. We all will experience those kinds of moments in our journey of faith, and they can be a powerful and startling display. But after it all, if we are still around to listen, we will hear that quiet voice of the Lord that is calling us back down, to continue on in our work to build the Kingdom of God.

We can and should ask questions and find out information about any sort of troubling issue. I still have plenty. The world excels at providing me with more and more questions, heaps and piles of thousands of complicated, twisted questions, but when it comes to matters of faith, it cannot give me the answers. And when times come for me to evaluate my faith, like Elijah I can imagine the Lord whispering to me, "What doest thou here, Christopher?" And then, in quiet moments, I can stand on the mountain and for yet another time compare the wind, the earthquake, the fire (and the Lord was not in them) to the still small voice of revelation.

Like Joseph Smith, we must find answers in this "war of words and tumult of opinions." Like him, my mind has at times been "greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant" (JSH 1:8-10) but while Joseph Smith listened well and weighed all the arguments, he did not stop there. He knew that the answers lay beyond the storm of words and reasoning of men, and so he retired to a grove of trees in humility and faith, seeking the will of God, and there he received truth directly.

Only God has ever filled my hunger for simple, real, spiritual sustenance. He answers my prayers. He always has. That has been the singular, most amazing miracle of my life. It may take time, and the process is often gradual, but when I go to him with my questions, quietly waiting, His truth has filled me up, and I can feel His promise for a time of greater understanding, when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).

And Thou Shalt Be Like a Watered Garden

I am really enjoying my garden. I feel just a bit of a thrill whenever I see something green coming out of the ground. Mostly it's just weeds. But whatever it is, it is so magical, so unexpected. How does a seed contain all those leaves, those buds, all that growth? I have a few flower beds and I have been out there almost every morning, puttering mostly. Playing around with the soil, pulling up crabgrass, waiting for the danger of the infamously late Canadian frost to finally be over so I can really get serious about plants.

I planted tulip bulbs last fall. Thinking about them all winter long, lost in the frozen yard, I didn't actually believe they would grow at first. I had never done it before, and it was like burying a stone. When early spring came, I peered over the beds and saw nothing stirring. How could I expect anything else? But when they finally did poke their little heads out of the soil, I was overjoyed. I checked on them everyday. Spring continued to show its surprises and now the trees, which were so recently covered with nothing but bare knobbles, are bursting with leaves. Peony stalks lifting themselves out of the darkness. It's all so incredible to me. I don't know why I am so surprised every spring, but I am.

It is hard not to believe in God in a garden. The prophet said to plant a garden, but I am convinced that it means more than self reliance, or food storage, or any of that stuff, though I think self reliance is important. It is about creation. It is about miracles. It is about seeing the hand of of God in the tiniest details, and the connection of all life to Him. It is about witnessing the steady organization of inert, useless materials--dirt, water, carbon dioxide--into something complex, beautiful, and regenerating. Entire forests spontaneously rising up out of the chaos by nothing more than a few seeds and time.

There is much symbolism in gardening and watching things grow. Some days, I feel rather like a seed, myself. My immortal soul was sent here in the dark and silence, and I stretch myself against the cosmic current of disorder, defying entropy. It is an impossible act, this miracle of sprouting in the stillness, reaching for the light, capturing the power of the sun with my delicate leaves, reaching into the earth with my hungry roots, sending forth a bud, a flower that bulges into a fruit that contains even more seeds. Impossible as it is, yet I try.

Noli Me Tangere; Fresco at Convent of San Marco, Florence,
by Fra Angelico - 1425-30

The greatest acts of God occurred in gardens. Knowledge and experience were introduced in the garden of Eden, and redemption and resurrection burst out of Gethsemane. "On that first Resurrection Sunday, Mary Magdalene first thought she saw a gardener. Well, she did--the Gardener who cultivated Eden and who endured Gethsemane. The Gardener who gave us the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the cedars of Lebanon, the tree of life" (Jeffrey R. Holland, Missionary Work and the Atonement) Though his plants, flowers, and trees are great and beautiful, above all Christ is a gardener of souls.

And we who are His children really are like plants cultivated in His garden, the vineyard of the world. Once scattered and wild, we are collectively put back together into the family tree of Christ to become His people, and we become Israel, the seed of Abraham, each of us forming part of God's beloved and often rebellious olive tree. Christ watches carefully over the olive tree, and He gathered me and grafted me into it. I, perhaps one of the more wild branches, am trying to put forth tame fruit before the great harvest of the end (Jacob 5).

In my garden I think about these kinds of things, faith and seeds. It gives me comfort to know that I am watched over, and that he is patient with me and my halting growth. I love the spring. I love the hope and the transformation. I love the miracles of change and life and order, all of which symbolize so beautifully our own journey to become something more than just a seed lost in the dirt.

Spring Has to Come

An elderly friend told me about an old Hungarian farmer that worked at their farm when she was young. Winters are long in Canada, of course, and when it seemed that spring had finally arrived, it would snow again, a sad reality with our Canadian seasons with blizzards tormenting us well into May. He would shake his head, cluck his tongue and say, "Spring has to come."

It snowed heavily again last night, and I say that phrase to myself every time I look out the window and see the cold evidence everywhere. I think of my plants that are just starting to come up in my flower garden and how this frost and snow is going to set them back again. I think of my driveway that I have to shovel yet again. I think of the kids' scattered hats and mittens I can't pack away yet. I am frustrated by it, but I know that spring has to come.

There have been some unpleasant things going on in the world, some of which has been on the news, but most troubling to me is the waning of faith and love among people, including friends, and the coldness that follows. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matt. 24:12)

“And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth.” (D&C 45:26)

The bleakness of today's social and moral landscape does indeed feel like a long, long winter.

However, as surely as spring must follow winter, the Second Coming of Christ has to come. It will be as welcome and full of change as springtime is to winter. The icy thrall of doubt and fear that seems to grasp the whole world will be released. In C.S. Lewis' analogy, the White Witch who makes it always winter and never Christmas will be dead in Aslan’s jaws. When Christ comes again, all enemies will be put under his feet. (1 Corinth. 15:25) When He comes to rule, it will be a different world, almost unrecognizable to the frozen wasteland that we live in now. It will be full of peace, love, joy and understanding.

Living in these times, as Saints in Latter-days, we must open our eyes to see the evidence of His coming everywhere. “Ye look and behold the fig trees, and ye see them with your eyes, and ye say when they begin to shoot forth, and their leaves are yet tender, that summer is now nigh at hand; Even so it shall be in that day when they shall see all these things, then shall they know that the hour is nigh."(D&C 45:37-38)

In spite of setbacks and sorrow, "spring has to come."  If we hold onto that faith, I believe we will rise up with joy to see Christ come again in glory and bringing with him eternal spring.

Doors

Totally stolen from the internet

Death makes sense to me because it is so certain, one of the only certainties I have. No matter what stage I am in, there is a flat horizon somewhere ahead, an unchanging landmark that I sometimes would rather forget about. See that over there, where earth meets sky? That is a straight line, like a flatline on an electrocardiogram's screen. That’s where mortal life ends, where we must all fall off head first into the unknown. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" says T.S. Eliot. Death is the overwhelming end of this reality. This is sobering knowledge to me, and I realize that much of my day-to-day preoccupations are a waste of time. However, I accept this absurd wasteland with faith because I believe in Christ, the resurrection, and the promise of a new birth.

Birth has some parallels to death. Both seem a lot like being flung through a door. Have you seen the way a child enters this "vale of tears"? It is not usually a very graceful, tender performance. I actually thought my first child was dead when she was born. Her face was squashed and purple and she lay there on a tray like some lifeless invertebrate wet with blood and horror. I looked at the doctor with concern as he whisked her up and onto some sort of ventilator for her first breath of life. She was fine, but it made me realize how savage and crass this life is, in spite of all our efforts to make it seem sanitary and decorous.

I wonder how it will be when I exit, what sort of receiving party waits on the other side of life. Will I flop into the next world looking as ridiculous and unprepared as I entered in?

As I look forward to the arrival of our third child, I can’t help but think about this life. I have a strange but wonderful job right now as Health Care Aide at a care facility, taking care of dying people. My day is filled with reminders of this short, fragile little pilgrimage, and just how unreliable our bodies really are. I am particularly intrigued with palliative care, when someone is preparing to die. It is strange to see their open, toothless mouths, and watch their last breaths as if they are exhaling their very souls into some vast unknowable realm. It is so easy, the way they leave their bodies behind, like a hermit crab that outgrows its shell and scuttles out into the sea. For the most part, they are ready and willing to go. Old age does not generally "burn and rage at close of day" (Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.)

Some days, I feel like an usher stuck between two wide open portals of mortality. During the morning I take care of my children, make them breakfast, change their diapers, and in the evenings at my job, I do much of the same. I begin to see patterns in the cycle of life. Good morning, children, and welcome to earth. Goodnight Mrs. Pierson, and farewell. The beginning and end, and all in a day's work.

Covered in blood and water and spirit, I was once placed with limbs outstretched into my mother’s arms, and I cried, in discomfort and insecurity. I must have known it was a temporary existence, that it would someday end. Perhaps that is what Adam and Eve were hiding from in Eden. “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:10) Perhaps their nakedness reminded them of their vulnerability. Maybe it was the promise of death that filled them with terror and sent them scurrying for a hiding place, a reminder of God's decree and promise: “Thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

Ezekiel writes, “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord…I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live” (Ezekiel 37:6). The dry bones, shaking in the valley of death, will once again receive their breath in the same way that I, as a newborn child, first cried out for air and life.

Organize Yourselves

When we were preparing to move into our new house four months ago, I had a verse of scripture that kept banging around in my mind.

“Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.” (D&C 88:119)

I still say it over and over to myself because it feels exciting. It reminds me of what I am doing. It reminds me of what I need to do. It gives me purpose. I enjoy the parallel between my work in building a household and the Lord’s instructions to the Saints at Kirtland to build their first temple. I feel that both kinds of work are based on a similar purpose.

But this work is painful. Excruciatingly so. Building a house, especially a house built on the principles in that verse, is dreadfully hard. I mean, I am at my wits end when I can finally crawl into my unmade bed. And I think most times that I am failing the commandment.

My house is a mess right now. There are broken Christmas ornaments on the floor upstairs, quick oats that I spilled on the kitchen floor, and a basket of laundry sitting on my couch. A bottle of nailpolish is dumped out artistically on my carpet, despite the 5 liters of acetone I just used trying to get it out. The cats’ litterbox is full of poop. There are hair ribbons all over the bathroom floor. I don’t have time to finish installing those closet doors. And the basement floor is suffocated in toys and coloring books and crap. Oh, and I need to shovel the driveway of snow.

I had the most exciting vision of my home when we were getting ready to move in. I was going to make a little sanctuary, this clean, polished, and pleasant place where the Holy Spirit could just curl up cozily in every corner and my children could blissfully develop their minds and souls with every new activity. Then life came and smacked me hard in the face and I am down for the count. So what do I do now? How do I organize myself? How do I establish a house? I sleep, I get up, I try to establish a house of God, and I fail. Everyday.

There is an image in my mind, one that I must have seen somewhere, of your typical housewife. She has a housecoat on and there are bags under her eyes. Her hair is frizzy and I think she has a wooden spoon in her hand. I like to think of her, my patron saint, in moments like this, and I plead to her for comfort. I wish there was more she could offer. Because I am a man, I can never quite fit into her fuzzy slippers. Perhaps one day there will be another caricature made, one of a househusband in a housecoat, with some heavy stubble on his face and a deranged expression, holding a screaming baby, with a caption above him saying something like, “God give me patience but please hurry!” Something simple that reminds me that it is okay to feel this way, that every Dad feels this way, and it’s normal. It’s just temporary insanity. You’ll get through this. But for now, I feel like the only father who starts his day furiously spiteful because of the way rice crispies dry onto bowls. Because, yes, we had them for supper last night. And yes, they were still sitting on the table.

I am not trying to imply that my wife is blissfully going to school each day, coming home smiling to put up her feet and read the paper. She is every bit as frazzled as I am, and we can commiserate fairly well. I work too, and so I have my escape from the drudgery of this house too. But we both are struggling to stay afloat. It seems to me that the Proclamation’s mandate to “Help each other as equal partners” just means that we both end up losing our minds. Establishing a house requires both of us to be pushed to our limits over and over and over again.

But somehow in all this I believe, or want to believe, that I am establishing something worthwhile. I want to believe that my house is worth comparing to the temple, that it is like a place of refuge, a house of God. I want to believe that the work going on in these walls is holy, and that my family life will be as eternal as the work in the temple. I like to think that scrubbing burnt rice off the bottom of this pot has a more divine purpose. And even though my house is a disgrace and my children look like ragamuffins, I want to believe that my offering will be as acceptable as the offering of the Saints at Kirtland.

And so I will wake up tomorrow morning with that scripture rattling around in my brain again. I will pretend to sound cheerful when I wake up my daughter for kindergarten. I will try to organize myself—hopelessly, but I will try—and I will try to prepare every needful thing. I will try and remember to say a prayer with my family before we jump into the fray. I will try to fast and put my spiritual needs above my physical demands. I will try to develop faith and live it so that my children will develop their own faith. I will try to encourage learning, both secular and gospel learning. I will make my house as glorious as I can, even though I can’t really make ends meet right now, and I will try to make my house a house of order. I will try again tomorrow—however unsuccessfully—to make my house into a house of God.

Connections

The emphasis on family history and temples has been increasing in the church. Or maybe my ears have just been tuned in to it better. The last couple of conferences seemed to emphasize the growing push for family history to be done, and the latest letter from the First Presidency was about doing your own family history and taking the names of your ancestors to the temple.

I happen to love genealogy. Yes, I am one of "those."  I started doing genealogy when my son was born. I was feeling a growing emptiness inside me then. It was winter, my wife was in school, and I was trapped inside my house, restless, depressed, and feeling cut off from people and the world. As any man in such conditions would do (muffled laughter), I wrote poetry:

In my dreams, I dissolve myself out of shell

And out of mind.

Like a hermit crab grown too large for his home,

With a brain that bangs, claws, zings into next.

Man is such an empty word.

I can hear the emptiness plain

When I shove my ear

Against my chest.

I thought about what it would be like to cut myself loose from all my social/familial entanglements, move myself far away, preferably close to a beach and with a pretty garden. No human responsibility, no human anything.

I don't remember how it started, boredom perhaps, but I started doing genealogy. I searched out my history and I was surprised by how easy it was, with the convenience of search engines and digitized images of birth records, newspaper archives, and parish transcripts. I felt a spirit move upon me that changed me inside. I felt a new sense of connection, the turning of my heart to generations gone before, which also seemed to turn my heart to accept my children and the generations ahead.

I remember the feeling of discovery, late at night, bouncing my newborn son’s baby chair with my foot for him to sleep while I sifted through genealogical records online. With my son at my feet and my ancestors at my fingertips, I felt an overwhelming sense of connection. My thoughts of isolation, loneliness, and meaninglessness faded away, and I learned about the power I had as a father. My ancestors had families, they had left me a legacy and, most sobering, my children would pass on a part of me.

When I was married in that holy room between two mirrors, I was clasped fast between innumerable years of past and future. An eternal past, and an eternal future. I existed as one still-life frame in eternity.

I feel the weight of expectation at times, but I also feel the freedom and blessing of my covenants.

In any tree, there are roots. In my own family there are strong roots of history and tradition:  pioneers with handcarts, marriages, divorces, birth, death, suffering, sacrifice, and faith. A person does not need to have an extensive Mormon pedigree to discover those things. I once wondered if those things tied me down, frustrated my passions, inhibited my development. Perhaps. But when I look beyond myself, outside of my selfish desires and ambitions, I find that these roots also give me something more, like stability, spiritual nourishment, and hope.

And then there are the branches, the fruit, the seed, the blessings. My children mean more to me than my own life, even though I feel stretched beyond my capacity to bear them as their father. The fruit is often bitter, as Eve discovered, but after the sorrow, in quiet moments of appreciation, I feel "my eyes have been opened" and I can understand the purpose of my life in a new way.

The Savior said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." 

And so I try to do my part and stay connected.