The Many Worlds of Madison Sowell

ON BIRTHDAYS AND NAME DAYS

            Nomina sunt consequential rerum is a favorite dictum of the medieval Italian poet Dante, whose words have been the focus of much of my scholarly life.  The Latin phrase translates into English as “Names are the consequences of things.”  The thought runs this way:  “If people naturally call a woman Maria, then it must be because she is pure like the Virginia Mary; if a Hispanic lad is called Jesus, he will grow up to be like the Lord.”  The saying stresses the intimate connection between names and who one really is.

Since today (March 8^th) is my birthday, I’ve been reflecting all day about when I was born and why I was given the name I was given.  At the time it was a virile, stately, and rugged name for a boy baby.  It recalled the name of President James Madison and Madison Square Garden, where boxing matches were held every Saturday night and broadcast across the country.  Now, ever since the movie Splash came out and the blonde mermaid chose “Madison” as her name, it has proven a much more popular name for girl babies.  Fortunately I’m mature enough not to experience a gender identity crisis every time I encounter a post-Splash young woman named Madison, but I must admit it’s still a bit disconcerting to see someone wearing a skirt and responding to my name at the same time….

Most Americans celebrate their birthday each year with lots of hoopla, including cards that sing songs and gag gifts such as one I received this week.  It was a book entitled The Joys of Getting Older by Thomas and Cindy Senior.  When I opened the $4.99 paperback, I found that all the pages were blank.  (It took a second for the gray cells to connect, but I got the joke—including the pseudonym of the authors.)  In any event, birthday celebrations in this country are done in a variety of ways but usually with family and friends, parties and games, cake and ice cream.  What is more important, the celebration transpires on the day that marks the anniversary of one’s birth.  Often little time is left for quiet meditation.

In Catholic countries such as Italy, however, the traditional day of annual celebration falls (or used to fall) on one’s onomastico—on the day associated with one’s personal saint or the saint for whom one was named.  For example, if my given name were Patrizio (Patrick), everyone would know that my onomastic celebration would be on March 17^th, which is St. Patrick’s Day.  Traditional calendars listed the name of a male or female saint on each day of the year; therefore, one did not need to ask when anyone’s annual celebration would take place.  If your friend’s name was Giovanni Battista, it would be on the day celebrating the nativity of John the Baptist (June 24, six months before Christmas).  The rise of American culture in Italy (spread following World War II through films) and the country’s increasing secularism, marching in lockstep with the decline of Catholic influence, has led to a shift in this wonderful Italian tradition.  Today there is a preference for celebrating one’s birth day rather than one’s onomastic day.  Nevertheless the notion of using one day a year to reflect on one’s name and the significance of the life represented by that name continues with many families.  Often a prayer would be offered to one’s name saint.

As one in love with Italian culture, I reflect each year on my birthday not only on the events of the previous year (its highs and lows, successes and failures, family births and deaths, goals achieved and not) but also on the arc of my life to date.  When the year in question is one of the so-called “significant birthdays” (e.g., 25^th, 30^th, 35^th, 40^th, 50^th, etc.), I focus on the previous five-year or ten-year period in comparison to earlier lustrums or decades.  I also think about my father, whose name was also Madison and who waited until he was 65 years old to produce his one and only son.  Yes, you read that right.  It’s not a typo.  My father was in his sixty-sixth year when I was born.  His own father, who chose the name Madison because it was his father-in-law’s name, was born prior to the start of the Civil War or, as they call it in Lexington, the War of Northern Aggression.  My name has a very l-o-n-g and venerable family tradition.

So what I do I think about on this particular birth-day?  I am grateful, first of all, that I’m not about to become a father at age 65 (as did my own father) but that I have three adorable grandchildren to watch over, one of whom carries on my family name as his middle name.  Second, I am thankful that I chose to become a teacher, one who gets to discuss with students why “names are the consequences of things” has dramatic implications for the rest of a child’s life.  (Just think of the lyric from the Billy Cash song A Boy Named Sue:  “I tell ya, life ain’t easy for a boy named ‘Sue’”!)  Third, I relish the fact that I was reared on or close to a farm and that I learned to work hard for anything I wanted, including an education.  Chopping cotton for 75 cents an hour surely was not fun at the time, but it makes for some great stories a few decades after the fact about the value of perseverance.  Finally, I’m glad that the filters or lenses through which I see myself reach far beyond that of any one name or epithet or adjective.  I have come to the realization that we can greatly influence our outlook by the handles we choose to apply to ourselves:  son or daughter, father or mother, brother or sister, religious or irreligious, angry or contented, happy or sad, peacemaker or war monger, transparent or opaque, candid or insincere, positive or negative, and so on.

For the truth is this: each one of us chooses, psychologically and emotionally, the lenses through which we view ourselves.  We brand ourselves by the words we adopt to describe who we are, whether expressed aloud or kept locked away in our minds.  On this birthday I’ve come to the conclusion that just as “names are the consequences of things,” so “things [how we view our core selves] are the consequences of names [that we assign to ourselves].”  That’s why we all are touched when the “colored maid” in Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help tells the little white girl to remember, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”  We are moved to tears because we know, deep down, that words (and names) matter, especially those we assign to (or elect to accept for) ourselves.

BLOG #5:  ON TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK

My premise is that no thoughtful adult can sincerely claim never to have been slighted, hurt, wounded, wronged, or damaged, to one degree or another, by the thoughtless actions or inactions of another person. This fact of life holds true whether the other person’s words, acts, or deeds were intentional or unintentional.  In other words, I believe it is the nature of la condition humaine that humans make mistakes in judgment, whether intended to hurt or not, and that the resulting consequences often affect not only themselves but also their fellow humans, including friends, family members, colleagues, or even strangers.  This hurt can be interpreted metaphorically as a “slap on the cheek.”  (I use the word “slap” intentionally, and by “slaps” I am not referring to violent crimes.  I am not suggesting that if a murderer takes the life of one of our children, we should offer him another child, or if a rapist rapes our sister, we should provide him with another victim.  I am talking about the snubs, the mistreatments, and the disrespect that all of us encounter during the regular course of living and working among imperfect beings.)

In this blog I shall argue that how we react to those perceived or real slaps, slights, hurts, or wrongs determines to a large degree not only our overall happiness but also our emotional or spiritual health.  I posit that each rational human being has moral agency and can, therefore, choose to take offense or elect to forgive; any one of us can choose to act out of vengeance or opt not to do so.  No one can offend you (or me), no matter how offensive their words or acts may be, unless you (or I) choose to be offended.  For those who accept and embrace this as a true principle, the problem remains:  how does one arrive at the point that “turning the other cheek” (i.e., not resorting to vengeful retaliatory acts) is the normal reaction.  My short answer is that it takes time, practice, and patience; it involves swallowing one’s pride and learning through experience that humility can become an essential character-building strength that makes us stronger, more resilient, and a greater resource for others.

SCRIPTURAL BACKGROUND:  In one of the most memorable (and, for many, one of the most vexing) teachings of Jesus, the Master Teacher proclaimed “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39, KJV).  In the context of Rome’s occupation of Palestine and of the surrounding verses of scripture, the teaching seems intended to provide a dramatic alternative to “an eye for an eye” approach to justice.  Instead of the Mosaic lex talionis (law of retaliation) that demanded equal justice and swift retribution (“a tooth for a tooth”), Jesus taught that de-escalation of a conflict is better than a highly personal and ultimately unhelpful escalation.  Acting out of revenge may bring temporary satisfaction but it rarely brings long-lasting peace, either to the individual who has been hurt or to the community at large.

PURPOSE:  I seek to share some personal lessons I learned early on in a professional or work setting from “turning the other cheek.”  I shall not “name names,” for my desire is not to lay blame on others but to emphasize lessons learned so that whoever reads this blog may elect not to take offense when disappointment reigns because of the actions or words of a co-worker, colleague, or someone else.

A CASE STUDY:  Once upon a time, many years ago, I was nominated for a key position in academic administration at a prestigious institution.  In response to requests, I submitted extensive information to an impressive search committee and was interviewed thoroughly and vetted extensively for the job.  Members of the search committee met diligently for many weeks discussing the pros and cons of numerous candidates.  In the end I was selected as one of three finalists.  The chair of the search committee informed me that the names of three finalists had been submitted in unranked order of preference to a vice president who had not participated in the search but who would choose the person for the job.  A week or so later the VP in question announced who would fill the position, and it was not I but someone I knew and respected.

Naturally I was disappointed not to have been chosen.  Three members of the search committee contacted me privately, stating that they were flabbergasted, given their vigorous support for my nomination.  I thanked them for their advocacy of my candidacy and did my best to move on as quickly as possible.  But then the VP who had made the decision invited me to a luncheon meeting and, in explaining his decision to appoint another finalist, claimed to have followed the ranked order of the search committee, stating that I was ranked second.  I was fine up until that moment.  In one disconcerting instant it appeared that either the chair of the search committee had lied or the VP was lying.  I respectfully shared with the VP that it was my understanding that the names of the finalists went up “unranked as to priority.”  “No,” he assured me, “that was not the case.”  He replied that I must have misheard the search committee chair.  When I next encountered the chair of the search committee, I inquired as to whether I had misunderstood whether the names went up “ranked” or “unranked.”  He smiled and, quite pleased with himself, said, “Unranked!” Then he added, “I listed them in alphabetical order!”  Because the last name of the person who was appointed to the position appeared alphabetically before my last name, I realized that neither the chair nor the VP had lied to me.  Rather there had been an unfortunate lack of communication between them as to what the ranked listing of names signified.  I respectfully pointed that out to the chair and excused myself.

At that point I had a critical decision to make.  I realized that publicly revealing what I now knew would create unbelievable dissension, not just within a particular academic unit but also for that campus.  Members of the search committee from various disciplines would be furious that their decision to advance the names unranked had been foiled by the chair’s failure to communicate properly what his listing of names really meant (i.e., that they were in alphabetical order, not in order of recommendation).  The VP would be embarrassed by a blunder so silly that his competence to lead would be called into question.  The newly appointed administrator, who was an accomplished individual and in no way at fault, might become the butt of jokes.  While I might have the temporary satisfaction of tarnishing the reputation of at least two individuals (the search committee chair and the VP), both of whom had been negligent in performing their duties, I knew the unwelcome embarrassment that this would cause to that university’s administration at large.

So, what did I do?  I swallowed my pride and chose to remain silent, allowing colleagues to conclude that my preparation was somehow inferior to that of the person chosen.  Frankly, this course was not an easy one to follow, but I felt in my heart that it was the right one.  That I thereafter chose to forge ahead and to work harder to make sure that my own communications were clearer and that my own credentials were stronger has made all the difference in my subsequent career.  The search committee chair and the VP subsequently discussed the issue and made adjustments to their modus operandi; they, too, apparently learned a valuable lesson.  Each later was selected by other universities for even more significant roles.  The chair became a well-respected dean and the VP an admired university president.  Likewise the person chosen in my stead served admirably and blessed many lives.  As I refocused my efforts on the things that I had control over, my own career blossomed in unforeseen ways and led to far greater opportunities than I ever could have imagined.  But what is more important, I found peace in “turning the other cheek,” in not becoming embittered and in not seeking payback.  Today I can smile, even chuckle, at the situation and be grateful that my career took the direction it did.

Making allowance for the unintentional, even foolish, mistakes of others, like choosing to forgive, should not be taken as a desire to foster ineptitude.  It is often the right thing to point out another person’s error, especially if it has major ramifications; however, after doing this, one should move on and focus on what she or he has control over.  Dwelling on another’s mistakes and publicizing them are almost always counter-productive.  All too often the indignant person alienates himself from the larger community, withdrawing into a cocoon of bitterness.  Also, if we desire that others forgive us our own mistakes in judgment, then the Master Teacher taught in the Lord’s Prayer that we should be equally forgiving.  As I have argued elsewhere, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” means “Don’t forgive me one iota more than I am willing to forgive others.” Who doesn’t need forgiveness at one time or another?

Nevertheless developing a forgiving attitude requires, as stated earlier, time and practice and patience.  “Turning the other cheek” requires taking a long-term view of most situations.  It is often a process that may include “letting off steam” via a private conversation with a spouse or close friend, a consultation with a mentor, or a visit with a counselor or one’s ecclesiastical leader.

I conclude with a statement one church leader whom I respect shared on this subject.  Elder David Bednar taught this principle:  “When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.”  My desire on this Presidents’ Day is that we inculcate this principle of agency into our lives and choose not to take offense even when offensive or disrespectful things occur.

Blogged on February 20, 2017.

ON LEARNING TO PLAY THE PIANO IN THE BATHROOM

            This past Sunday I accompanied on the piano a men’s double trio singing the stirring hymn “High on the Mountain Top.”  Some members of the congregation, surprised to learn that I played the piano, went out of their way to compliment me on the confident and resolute way I performed.  Few had any idea that I also play the organ and that at one point in my career I studied with Dr. John Longhurst, who became a celebrated organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

While acknowledging the appreciative comments, I said nothing about my musical training.  Instead my mind raced back to when I was six years of age and just learning to play the piano in Aunt Lee’s bathroom. Yes, the bathroom, for that’s where she gave piano lessons.  It was a long narrow room with a door at one end that led outside; that was the means by which students and parents entered.  A door at the other—where the sink, bathtub, and toilet were located—led to her bedroom, where a large mutt was stationed to keep waiting students or parents from exploring the house, which overflowed with antique furniture and glassware.  Occasionally the dog would wander in, glance at students or parents, drink from the toilet bowl, and then retire again to the bedroom.  In addition to the upright piano and its wide bench, on which Aunt Lee and the student sat, were a captain’s chair, a banker’s table with a secret drawer, and a safe from one of three banks that Aunt Lee’s husband had been president of.

Once Aunt Lee realized that I was serious about my musical pursuits, she purchased a Henry F. Miller piano for my parents’ home.  She promised that if I practiced and learned to sight read songs and hymns, I would never lack for friends.  Her promise has proven true in many different settings, and today’s blog pays tribute to my first piano teacher—Aunt Lee, who insisted that I call her simply “Lee.”  (Her father, born before the “War of Northern Aggression,” named her after General Robert E. Lee.)  Therefore, that’s how I’ll now refer to her, not out of disrespect but rather out of respect for her wishes.

There’s no way to put it except to declare it honestly:  Lee was a character!  She felt that the epithet “aunt” made her sound too old.  Even though she lived to be 97 years and 9 months, she never admitted her age except when she applied for Social Security.  She “doctored” the birth dates in the family Bible to make herself appear much younger than she was.  She even gave a false age when she married a much older man, listing herself as 39 when she was really 51.  (When they married, he was 68 and had already been president of the three banks.)  Her motto was simple:  “A lady never tells her age, and a gentleman never asks.”

The month before I was born Lee’s aged husband passed away, and she came to live with us for six weeks, helping my mother take care of me as a newborn.  We remained bonded for the rest of her life.  When I was two years of age, Lee announced to my mother that I could write Lee’s name.  Mother was incredulous until Lee gave me a pencil and urged me to write her name.  I carefully wrote a capital L, followed by two more capital L’s that—with the addition of parallel lines—became E’s.  That’s how the legend started that “Madison could write at age two.”  By the time I was five, it is true that Lee had taught me the notes of the treble and bass clefs by drawing musical staffs on white butcher paper and then teaching me the notes through mnemonic devices, such as the treble spaces spelled FACE and the treble lines (EGBDF) were represented by the sentence Every Good Boy Does Fine.

I wasn’t above taking bribes, and Lee promised me a dollar bill if I learned to sight read and sing “Oh, Susanna!”  I mastered the song in record time.  After a few years, however, she realized that I wasn’t taking her as seriously as I should and that there needed be more distance between pupil and teacher.  That’s when Lee turned me over to Miss Mabel and paid for me to take from a much stricter teacher.  Miss Mabel sat in her own chair next to the piano bench and held a long wooden pointer that she was rumored to rap across your fingers if you played the wrong note.  (To my knowledge she never did that, but the rumors sufficed to make most of us pay close attention to the notes we played.)

Miss Mabel was as eccentric as Aunt Lee but in a different way.  Miss Mabel wore a Borgia poison ring, attended the real Chautauqua in New York state every summer, had a photo of herself astride a camel with the Great Pyramid in the background, and featured “modern art” above the organ in her living room.  Like Lee, Miss Mabel attended the Piggott Methodist Church, and soon they colluded to have me playing the piano and later the organ for church services.  It was nerve-wracking at first, and it didn’t help that at my organ debut I misheard the title of the closing hymn.  I began playing one hymn while the congregation started singing a different one. We made it through a discordant first line, at which point a choir member charitably placed his copy of the hymnal with the correct hymn in front of me, and we started afresh with a hymn I had not practiced.  Fortunately I was a good sight reader, a talent that has remained with me over the intervening years.

Decades later when Lee could no longer live in her home because of advanced age, we had an auction to sell her household furniture, including three upright pianos.  The president of a college attended and shared with me he had studied piano with my aunt.  Then he paused and said reflectively, “The greatest lessons she taught me on that piano bench had little to do with music.”  He asserted, “I am who I am because of the ‘life lessons’ she taught me.”  (He didn’t add, “in the bathroom,” but we both knew where she had taught those lessons.)  His comment made me reflect on things she had taught me before, during, and after piano lessons:  “Don’t ever smoke tobacco or drink alcohol.”  “You can always ask for ginger ale at a party.”  “Study the Bible and memorize favorite verses.”  “Don’t procrastinate, for procrastination is ‘the thief of time’.”  “Travel widely.”  “Read great books.”  “Always accept the invitation to play the piano.”

How different my life would have been if I had not had my Aunt Lee’s teachings to help mold me into the person I am today.  Now it’s incumbent upon me—and indeed upon all sentient and caring adults—to become such “uncles” and “aunts” who are willing to teach “life lessons” to the children and young people we know and love.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”

            My most memorable Christmas got jump started with a tragic accident ten weeks prior to December 25^th, an event that led to “Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”  I was eight years old, the age of accountability according to many theologians.  I was enrolled in Miss Lola Gibson’s third grade class on “schoolhouse hill” in Piggott, Arkansas (pop. 2,776).  Although the tragedy occurred over fifty years ago, the date is indelibly inked in my mind: it was October 10^th, a Monday and the start of a new school week.  I enjoyed attending elementary school, but I hated facing the fact every Monday that I had to ride the school bus.

My readers need to know that, despite my later Harvard education, I was reared a country boy.  My mother, father, and I lived at “two-mile turn,” located a couple of miles outside the city in a grove of trees that I loved to climb.  The white clapboard house that I called home had once been a dance hall popularly known as “The Trees.”  Badly scuffed hardwood floors testified to the stomping and dancing that had taken place over the years.  The building’s original name, however, was far more pretentious: “The Trianon.”  It derived either from a palace (Le Grand Trianon) or a château (Le Petit Trianon) near Versailles, France.  (Which building was referenced was never clear to me.)  Aunt Carrie—for whom Carryville, Arkansas, was named—had owned and (with highfalutin flair) had christened the building à la française.  To her and her heirs, the dance hall remained simply “The Trianon,” with no need for the epithet grand or petit.  Auntie’s aristocratic airs derived from her father-in-law’s having purchased six sections of swamp land a few miles beyond “two-mile turn”; those 3,000+ acres he subsequently drained and turned into a series of tenant farms that surrounded the ville (village) that his son incorporated and named after his wife, my Aunt Carrie.  At her death my father inherited The Trianon and converted it into a comfortable three-bedroom home. In short, my surroundings were, from my eight-year-old perspective, idyllic.

Although the home’s setting was pastoral and peaceful, my mother suffered serious stomach ailments that October.  She had traveled to Memphis over the weekend for tests at the Baptist Hospital.  Dad hurriedly made breakfast that fateful Monday morning.  When I went to turn the volume down on the television set so that we could say grace over the food, he cursed because he thought I was trying to turn the volume up.  He was so worried that Mother might be suffering from cancer that he lost his temper.  He was trying to get me fed and out of the house so that I would not miss the school bus into town.  He was in a rush to drive the two hours to check on Mother.  I was a sensitive lad, and I got my feelings hurt big time.  I was sulking by a giant oak tree in the front yard when he rushed out of the house to drive to Memphis.  When he saw me leaning morosely against the oak, he was moved to pity.  He knew that I hated riding the bus, which was rife with bullies; he may have felt a twinge of guilt for having lost his temper at breakfast.  Even though he needed to drive in the opposite direction to get to Memphis, he said, “Come on, son.  I’ll give you a ride to school.”  I was thrilled and immediately forgave him.  When we arrived ten minutes later at the school house, he kissed me on the lips, told me he loved me, and said that he would see me soon.  I replied, “I’ll see you later.”  Nevertheless that was the last time I saw my father alive.  The next time would be when I stared down at him in his coffin.

Dad was killed in Memphis two blocks from where my mother was staying.  A car driven by a young man struck my father’s car when Dad abruptly changed lanes.  The impact threw Dad from the car; his head hit a concrete curb, and he died instantly.  My mother heard the sirens and thought, “Oh no, someone’s been hurt.”  That someone was her husband, and she became a widow with an eight-year-old son to raise alone.

That autumn was extremely difficult, not only emotionally but also financially.  Money was tight.  Mother had used the small amount of insurance from Dad’s death to buy a new car to replace the one destroyed in the accident.  She told me that I could choose an item from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue for my one Christmas present.  If it didn’t cost too much, she said that Santa would bring it to me.  Knowing that there was a Santa Claus was something that gave me the will to go forward, and I spent night after night in November turning the pages of the catalogue before I finally settled on what I wanted Santa to bring me.  It was a plastic dinosaur set that cost around ten dollars.  Mother said she would let Santa know.  I was thrilled.

To say that I believed in Santa with all my heart would have been an understatement. I knew that Santa existed because one Christmas Eve a couple of years before I had heard sleigh bells jingling outside my bedroom window as I struggled to go to sleep.  Aunt Lee entered the house right after that to say that she had seen Santa riding by in the sky.  She asked breathlessly, “Did you hear his bells?”  I replied, “I most certainly did!” That was the main reason why I chose to ignore the mean boys and girls at school who kept suggesting that Santa Claus wasn’t real and that reindeer can’t really fly.

December finally came, and soon classes would end for Christmas break.  One day Mother came to pick me up after school.  As I rushed to jump in the back of her station wagon, she ordered me to get in the front seat next to her.  Although she was quite insistent, I loved riding in the back and chose to ignore her urging.  I jumped in the back.  It was there that I saw it:  a package that Mother had obviously retrieved from the post office.  The paper was torn on the side, and I read three words that changed everything: PLASTIC DINOSAUR SET. My eyes filling with tears, I exited the back of the car, moved to the front seat, and sat stunned next to Mother.  The mean kids were right after all:  there was no Santa who lived at the North Pole; there were no flying reindeer with bells.  Adults made the story up.  The tale of Santa Claus was like the myth that my dad would always be there for me.  To keep my heart from breaking, I consoled myself that at least I knew I would get exactly what I wanted on December 25^th. If only I had known what was in store. . . .

Rather than spending Christmas alone, Mother and I drove to her sister’s place.  Aunt Beth had a big house and a feisty French poodle named Pepe because he was as black as pepper.  Everyone felt sorry for me, and so I was privileged to sleep in Aunt Beth’s giant four-poster bed.  I could not have been more excited when she awakened me on Christmas morning.  Strangely, she just stood at the door to the bedroom; she was not smiling.  It was Christmas, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Aunt Beth seemed distressed.  “Oh, Madison,” she sighed, “Santa brought you a plastic dinosaur set.  He even took it out of the box and set it up under the tree.  Unfortunately, Pepe mistook the animals for his chew toys.”  I jumped out of bed and ran to the tree in the family room.  There I found my chewed-up plastic dinosaurs.  I crumpled to the floor in disbelief.  How could I go on living?  Was life going to be a series of disappointments and heartache?

Children endure loss and disillusionment in a variety of ways.  Many become angry and act out their anger in hurtful and often self-destructive ways.  Others turn inward, becoming withdrawn and introverted.  A few deal with their hurt by asking searching questions, seeking reassuring answers, or focusing on things that bring a degree of solace and happiness.  With loving encouragement from relatives I pursued this last course, becoming ever more inquisitive and bookish, and pouring my soul into learning to master the piano and organ.  What is more important, I began reflecting on certain big questions:  “Where do we come from?” “Why are we here on earth?” “What happens after we die?” “Why do bad things happen to good people such as my father?”  For eight years I asked myself and others those questions.  Then one day two young elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints met with my mother and me and bore a powerful witness:  “We have answers to the age-old questions:  Where do we come from? Why are we here?  Where are we going?”  To their astonishment, they discovered they were talking to an adolescent who was primed and ready to listen to, question and challenge, and then pray about their answers.

The silver lining to that very bleak holiday season when I was eight was that my sixteen-year-old heart was open to the truth that we came from God and can return to Him.  William Wordsworth captured this doctrine when he penned:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

          Hath had elsewhere its setting

               And cometh from afar;

          Not in entire forgetfulness,

          And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

               From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

               Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

               He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

     Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,

          And by the vision splendid

          Is on his way attended….

            Yes, the silver lining was that my “growing Boy” heart accepted the message that we have a Father in Heaven from whence we came.  Furthermore, He gave his Only Begotten Son so that we might live again.  There is a plan to help us return to God.  It includes exercising faith in His Son, repenting of our mistakes, following the example of Jesus by being baptized, receiving the Holy Ghost, and persevering to the end.

Years have passed since I gained my own witness, and over time my purpose on earth has become that of sharing my testimony that Christ is the reason for this holiday season.  He is the ultimate gift.  I share that witness today with no embarrassment but with the knowledge that some will accept it and others will not.  That is part of God’s plan, too:  we all have our moral agency to embrace or reject the plan of happiness.  I have chosen to accept it, and that decision has made all the difference.

            End of Blog #3 (19 December 2016)