huh

My sister is a missionary.

Super, super weird.

Published, Again

I recently submitted a guest post to the LDS literary blog called Segullah, and today they published it. So for today's reading, I'd like to redirect your attention here.


And yes, I am excited to be publishing things a few weeks in a row. Even if it is just for blogs. A whole lot better than no publishing at all.

Thank Goodness for November

Text to C Wednesday afternoon:

Sometimes being an adult sucks.

Response from C:

Most times. 

Later, after getting home from my printmaking class (the only redeeming thing about the day) and not watching The Orphanage as planned (darn you, Reed, and all your editing projects), I realized that with the passing of Halloween, it is now November. The month of gratitude prayers.

Usually it's just a week of gratitude prayers, the week leading to Thanksgiving. But at the rate things are going sucking, a month sounds like an excellent plan. 

A Quick Thought

An idea occurred to me at Institute this evening (be so proud that I went). We were talking about how it's always been important to the Church to keep a historical record, not just a spiritual one, and that we are encouraged to do that on a personal level as well as organizational. Once again, I wondered why.

Perhaps the reason our personal records are so important to Heavenly Father is that we are so important to Heavenly Father. We are his children. We matter to him. He wants to know what is happening in our lives, and in order for us to talk to him about what's happening we need to remember.

Norton Juster and the Story Girl

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.

When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him—least of all the things that should have.

"It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time," he remarked one day as he walked dejectedly home from school. "I can't see the point in learning to solve useless problems, or subtracting turnips from turnips, or knowing where Ethiopia is or how to spell February." And, since no one bothered to explain otherwise, he regarded the process of seeking knowledge as the greatest waste of time of all. 

As he and his unhappy thoughts hurried along (for while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as quickly as possible) it seemed a great wonder that the world, which was so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty.
The Phantom Tollbooth, pg. 9–11

I started rereading The Phantom Tollbooth on my way to meet up with Danielle last night, feeling a lot like Milo. Just eleven pages later when he reaches the Doldrums, I realized I'd been there recently, too. And while Tock logically explains, "since you got here [the Doldrums] by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking," the Doldrums aren't quite my problem. It's that the world, which is so large, is feeling so small and empty. And I do not have a purple tollbooth to drive through, or a watchdog to guide me.

This morning produced no mysterious package in my room, no Humbug, no Spelling s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g Bee. But I did my habitual blog reading after church, and today the Story Girl had her own version of a tollbooth in the form of a book. As Milo's tollbooth takes him to Dictionopolis, this seems appropriate to me.

The Story Girl said that from Advent until Easter she will be reading Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmadge. It's a book I've started many times, but never read all the way through. As she says, it's a lot to take in, but I loved the idea of reading just a little bit each day for the next four (or so) months. Good Christmas preparation, good New Year preparation, good Easter preparation. Good reading habit to form. Good way to fill the world.

So even though it was not meant as an invitation, I'm joining her. Would you like to come along?



Thank you, Lorren. And happy 50th anniversary to Norton. The Lands Beyond are still magic.

Friends on Longfellow Park

This post is for Aunt Ewan, Uncle Todd, and Aunt Allison.


In 1956 an LDS church building was dedicated in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was a very special building, and the prophet of the Church at the time, President David O. McKay, came out to Boston to dedicate it himself. He requested that one of the musical numbers be performed by great soprano soloist Ewan Harbrecht Mitton. I wasn't there, obviously, but I'm sure both the music and the dedication were lovely.

Roughly forty years after the dedication, Todd and Allison moved to Cambridge for graduate school at MIT. They met in the building President McKay dedicated and Aunt Ewan sang in.

Two years ago, the Longfellow Park chapel burned down because of a fire that started in the attic. Nearby congregations took care of the different LDS wards while they were without a building; they spent some time meeting in the Episcopal Divinity School around the corner. The Quaker church across the lawn also helped.

Source found here.

This June, the Longfellow Park chapel's reconstruction was completed and it was rededicated by President Henry B. Eyring. Aunt Ewan's granddaughter Val sang at the dedication, wearing a dress Ewan used to wear. Sadly, I was out of town that weekend and unable to attend the dedication. I felt like I'd missed out on a special connection that my family has to this place and this building.

Source found here.

Yesterday, the wards that meet in the Longfellow Park chapel had the wonderful opportunity to meet with the Quaker church across the lawn. Our wards combined for testimony meeting, then three members of the Quaker congregation came to teach Sunday School and answer questions about their faith. They did a lovely job. However, my favorite part was the exchange lesson: I was asked to go to the Quaker church along with a guy in the ward and talk to them about our church and beliefs. We taught what was referred to as "Mormonism 101" for twenty-five minutes and then answered questions for another twenty. After all the meetings were completed, the two churches met on the lawn in between for food and tours of each building.

I don't know why out of the many people they could have chosen to teach the Quakers I was asked to do so. But I'd like to think a part of it was so that I could be just as emotionally connected to the Longfellow Park chapel as Todd, Allison, and Aunt Ewan.

Simple Things

Pray in the morning,

Pray at night,

Read your scriptures

And you'll be all right.

—Dad

 

 

 

Source here.

Threshold

At the beginning of the summer, I had a goal. A self-improvement goal (although aren’t all goals about self-improvement?), and I knew it would be hard for me. So I thought I’d head off my usual inability to achieve written goals (sorry, Dad) and I made myself accountable to someone else. We made charts and determined prizes and promised to check up on each other.

And I failed miserably.

This failure seemed to just sit on top of a stack of other failed goals of the recent past and became much too overwhelming for me. It was too hard, and even though logically I knew that there was a way to move past this stack of failures, I was too tired to really try.

I am very good at hiding my feelings when they are bad and I am busy—my friend Cheryl once said that I show no emotion, I suppose because I like to deliver all lines with a straight face (lovely Mitton attribute, that one, and I won’t ever give it up)—and I’m quite confident that no one knew anything was wrong. Everyone continued knowing nothing until one Sunday evening while I chatted with a friend who picked up on my hesitation when I answered the usual “How’s your day?” And he reminded me that I’m not a failure and that I don’t have to tackle the stack all at once. But I do have to tackle the stack—in small, manageable ways.

~~~

In March I began eating breakfast again, for the first time (consistently) since Jerusalem. The time before that was probably high school, although I’m sure I went through waves while living in the dorms. But it’s been four and a half months of steady breakfast eating, and that’s more time than I spent in Jerus. It’s constant now, and I like it.

~~~

I discovered a blog this week that in all reality I should have come across earlier. But I don’t think I needed it earlier, I think I needed it now. I’m drawn to her writing and her personality and her honesty. And I sense so much deep truth in some of her ideas. Truth that I’ve taken and mulled over and let sit percolating in my mind.

~~~

When you design your life in accordance to a complex grid, all the elements will align to create something more beautiful and unique than you ever could have come up with on your own. 

~~~

I feel like I’m on the precipice of something great. The percolation, the breakfast, the small manageable decisions are leading me to an idea and way of living so real that I can’t fully understand or verbalize it. But it is good and true and powerful. It fits inside the grid. And I think it will make me more uniquely me.

Snatched

So apparently Saturday is the Rapture.

Photo found here

I only found out about this twenty minutes ago, but I’m told there have been signs everywhere. I don’t really know how I missed them.  

Not remembering the specific details of the Rapture, I looked it up. I would have preferred to ask Seth Hord, but as we no longer live in the same city and I actually have no idea what he is currently doing with his life or if he’s even in the country (anyone know? Is he back from Lithuania?), I turned to the all-knowing internet. I learned some really awesome etymological things: Wikipedia is great. I also read some really perplexing arguments as to why May 21 is the Rapture day and October 21 is the end of the world: ebiblefellowship.com is confusing. Actually, to be fair, a couple things made sense. But most did not.

The last three weeks or so I’ve been blog-stalking a girl I had a few classes with at BYU. I didn’t know her well at all in Provo, but I always liked her, and when I stumbled upon her blog I was thrilled. I’ve enjoyed going through her archives and reading past posts, particularly the ones around the new year. What, you ask, could this possibly have to do with the Rapture? Have you stopped eating breakfast again? Is blogger wigging out like last week? I’ll tell you.

Each new year she chooses a word or phrase for the year, something to work on and aspire to for the next twelve months, like “become” or “happiness” (yes, I did take those words from her blog). I like this idea for a few reasons: first, I love words, and focusing on all the ideas behind one word sounds fascinating to me. Second, I am a terrible goal setter. I don’t do new year’s resolutions, and I don’t make goals. They don’t motivate me. But I feel like this exercise might.

While I absolutely do not believe that the Rapture will occur on Saturday, nor do I believe that October 21 will be the end of the world, I do think that Harold Camping has one thing right: we need to be actively working on progressing and perfecting ourselves. Granted, he says it in terms of immediate salvation or certain destruction, and he would not agree with my rationale at all, but still—if the Rapture actually did happen on Saturday, would I be ready for it?

I’m pretty sure my answer is no. And I’m not okay with that.

But I’ve been thinking about the idea of progression through one word since I started this particular round of blog-stalking, and I feel like it is a good way for me to get to where I want to be. I want to be in a place where I’d be okay if the Rapture were in three days, or if I got hit by a bus, or whatever.

So I’m late for the new year, but who cares. Maybe January isn’t a good time for me to start things anyway. 

Also, what verb do you use when referring to the Rapture? Does the Rapture occur? Come? What happens to the people, exactly? Taken up? I know how I'd want to phrase things, but I'm not sure how they're commonly phrased among Rapture-believing people. 

Miracles

I'm sure you've all heard the news about the tornado in Alabama. It always makes me sad to hear stories like these, but this one was a little more personal than normal. A girl who went to Jerusalem with me, Rachael, lives in Tuscaloosa with her husband. Although we were not close friends, I love her dearly because we shared those wonderful experiences. She is such a sweet, strong person and I always admired her.

This is a link to an interview she gave with CNN about her experience with the tornado. The photos you see are of their apartment. It's an amazing story, and I am so grateful they made it through safely.

Happy Birthday, KJV

I live in a weird language dichotomy, unique to those who were (or still are) ELang and editing students. On the one hand, I am a grammar snob: a prescriptive believer in the purity of language, its origins, and its power. On the other hand, I am a linguist: a descriptive understander that language evolves, that varieties are not better or worse than each other, and that our dialectal differences are what make our language fascinating. Like most dichotomies, it is a confusing one, and I find myself continuously (or is it continually?) vacillating between the two ideas. I have labeled myself as a descriptive prescriptivist, but even that classification is not always entirely accurate. I never know exactly where I stand.

Except with one thing:

I love the KJV.

I’ve never been able to totally define my strong feelings toward this particular text; I think the Geneva is quite nice as well, and I will acknowledge that the NIV does a good job with its more contemporary translation. But I will always, always refer back to KJV, no matter how much anyone attempts to convince me that another translation is better, more accurate, or easier to understand.

This year, as I hope many of you know, marks the 400^th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version. I know it sounds a (lot) bit ridiculous that I am getting sentimental about this, but I am. I love this translation. I love it for its message, yes, but right now I love it for its language and how much it has affected ours. There have been several tributes to it in recent weeks, to which I would like to draw your attention:

Hallelujah! At Age 400, King James Bible Still Reigns (NPR)

Why the King James Bible Endures (NYTimes)

The end of Charles McGrath's article is a better explanation of my feelings than I have articulated thus far.

There are countless new Bibles available now, many of them specialized: a Bible for couples, for gays and lesbians, for recovering addicts, for surfers, for skaters and skateboarders, not to mention a superheroes Bible for children. They are all “accessible,” but most are a little tone-deaf, lacking in grandeur and majesty, replacing “through a glasse, darkly,” for instance, with something along the lines of “like a dim image in a mirror.” But what this modernizing ignores is that the most powerful religious language is often a little elevated and incantatory, even ambiguous or just plain hard to understand. The new Catholic missal, for instance, does not seem to fear the forbidding phrase, replacing the statement that Jesus is “one in being with the Father” with the more complicated idea that he is “consubstantial with the Father.”

Not everyone prefers a God who talks like a pal or a guidance counselor. Even some of us who are nonbelievers want a God who speaketh like — well, God. The great achievement of the King James translators is to have arrived at a language that is both ordinary and heightened, that rings in the ear and lingers in the mind. And that all 54 of them were able to agree on every phrase, every comma, without sounding as gassy and evasive as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is little short of amazing, in itself proof of something like divine inspiration.

Maybe that’s why I love it so much.

To celebrate its birthday next month, I would like two presents. First, this amazing book by one of my favorite linguistic authors, David Crystal. You should go check out NPR’s review. It will make you want it too.

The other is this amazing poster. Tell me you aren’t in love with the idea. I want that on my wall.

Easter Week

The shoes were not in my size. This was the second time.

Blast.


I received a package in the mail yesterday from mi madre. It was my Easter basket. It made me (yet again) excited for Easter. I love Easter. I love Easter Week. I love Palm Sunday and listening to my dad go through the last week of Christ's life. I love thinking about each day and visiting those sites in Jerusalem. I love reading through the Gospels. I love that it comes the same time as Passover and how they are tied together. I love the old Boston churches that play Easter music in the bell towers. I love seeing tulips and daffodils. I love Good Friday. I love Easter dinner. I love studying Easter talks. I love Easter hymns.

I love this video.




A lot of love, apparently.



Speaking of love, do you love me? And books? The Story Girl is having a giveaway for her birthday. Go check it out! Great books from a great girl. (Also, she mentioned me in her last post. You should read that too. One guess that you know which author she was covering...)

Huffington Post Was Not Quite Right

Last week, the Huffington Post ran an article comparing the Book of Mormon musical to the Qur’an burning by the (my words here, not HP) crazy pastor in Florida. While I appreciate what they were trying to do and I do like the attitude they had toward the Church’s reaction to the musical, I felt that the comparison was inappropriate. Marilyn Manson tearing up a copy of the Book of Mormon in Salt Lake is a more accurate comparison to the (again, my words) crazy pastor burning the Qur’an. So what’s the comparison to the Book of Mormon musical?

Enter Salman Rushdie. 

Now, we all know how much I’m literary crushing on Salman Rushdie. He has a beautiful mastery of the English language, and I’ll fall for anyone who does. But he did write a very controversial book in The Satanic Verses, which resulted in a fatwa calling for not only his death but the death of anyone else involved in the publication of the novel. He hid from the world for ten years, and several people died. The written word is a powerful motivator, apparently.

And while I don’t ever think it’s in any way acceptable to condemn someone to death based on their artistic work, I do understand why they felt the way they did. (I also recognize that this was a political move on the part of Ayatollah Khomeini, but the people in Britain and other parts of the world who responded in kind weren’t thinking politically.) It’s weird to see multiple sides of an issue where people demand you take just one.

Which brings me back to this lovely (slight sarcasm) new musical. I’ve been thinking about the two in relation to each other, and I’m having a tricky time resolving both. We took a quiz in my literature class in which our professor asked us if the content of The Satanic Verses is inescapably blasphemous. I responded as follows:

Since we first discussed Rushdie and the fatwa, I have been struggling with the motivations that Rushdie had for writing this novel. He has said in interviews that he didn’t mean to intentionally offend anyone but he did want to talk about subjects that are often considered taboo. While I understand that and think that it is absolutely worthwhile to discuss issues people often think are off-limits, I can still see how some of the scenes in the novel can be very offensive to some devout Muslims and considered blasphemous. Is the controversy inescapable? No. Any time you engage a religious topic there will be controversy; he just sparked a lot more controversy than other writers have. But is his project inescapably blasphemous? I’m not so sure about that one.

Roughly a month ago, a musical opened in New York called The Book of Mormon. Written by the creators of South Park and Avenue Q, it has been described by critics as very funny and entertaining, but also highly irreverent. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (very commonly known as the Mormon Church), and it has been interesting to me to hear about this musical and read reviews while also reading Satanic Verses. From what I have read and seen, I suspect that I would find parts of this musical very funny and clever; however, I am certain I would also find many parts of it completely inappropriate and perhaps offensive. I struggle with the idea of free speech and using whatever material you want in an artistic endeavor—ideas that I strongly support—at the expense of a group of people, particularly if it’s a group I am a part of or care for. And while I do support people’s freedom to express themselves, I also feel like there are boundaries that should not be crossed (how to define them is another matter entirely).

The only way I’ve been able to (partially) resolve this issue for myself is to look at the writer’s intent. In an interview on the Daily Show (starts at minute 14), the writers of The Book of Mormon mentioned how they do poke fun at everyone, but ultimately they are just interested in Mormons and the culture and it was their way of saying something like, “Hey, we don’t understand them at all but we think they’re fascinating.” Their intent wasn’t malicious or destructive in any way, and so even though I’m sure I would see some of the content as irreverent and inappropriate, I am willing to let those things go because they were not trying to cause harm. However, I am not so sure about Rushdie’s intent. Some of the scenes hit too close to home, especially considering he was a part of the Muslim world and knows how important Muhammad and the Qur’an are. His writing is very powerful, and it might have lost some of its power if it were not so blasphemous. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it right.

So, Salman, I do love you, but I’m still on the fence. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love The Satanic Verses, because I did. And you all should read it.

As for the Book of Mormon musical, I think I’ve landed pretty much in line with the Church’s response. But they usually get things spot on.

General Conference

It's my favorite weekend of the year (plus the first weekend in October). Eight hours of spiritual recuperating, plus listening to the nuances of Dieter Uchtdorf's gorgeous German accent.

And today we heard from President Samuelson! Oh, Cecil. I felt like I was back at BYU.


So take a gander, why don't you? It will be well worth your while.


Unrelated, why do we say "take a gander"? Actually, I may be the only person in existence to use this phrase anymore, but it's definitely the second time I've said it this week. If you can enlighten, I'd be much obliged.

Actually Eating (Crazy, I Know)

Sometimes there are Sundays that I feel speak directly to me.

The last three weeks certainly have been like that. In consequence of this, as well as one FHE lesson and one conversation had multiple times with a friend, I have eaten breakfast for almost two consecutive weeks (something I haven’t done without monetary reward from Melis since Jerusalem), I went grocery shopping for real meal ingredients (not that soup or rice and beans aren’t meals, but something slightly more substantial and less salty), and I actually prepared meals for myself so I can eat something when I get back from class at 10:30 during the week. Once I get this eating thing down, maybe I’ll try sleep or exercise.

So I’m ready for you, next five weeks from hell. You won’t kill me; I will be fully nourished.