deep beauty.

my mind and heart are so full these days, that i can hardly think of anything at all.

i have been thinking about deep beauty, however, thanks to sister Dalton. she told this story:

When I was attending Brigham Young University, I learned what it truly means to be a queen. I was given a unique opportunity, along with a small group of other students, to meet the prophet, President David O. McKay. I was told to wear my best dress and to be ready to travel early the next morning to Huntsville, Utah, to the home of the prophet. I will never forget the experience I had. As soon as we entered the home, I felt the spirit which filled that home. We were seated in the prophet’s living room, surrounding him. President McKay had on a white suit, and seated next to him was his wife. He asked for each of us to come forward and tell him about ourselves. As I went forward, he held out his hand and held mine, and as I told him about my life and my family, he looked deeply into my eyes.

After we had finished, he leaned back in his chair and reached for his wife’s hand and said, “Now, young women, I would like you to meet my queen.” There seated next to him was his wife, Emma Ray McKay. Although she did not wear a crown of sparkling diamonds, nor was she seated on a throne, I knew she was a true queen. Her white hair was her crown, and her pure eyes sparkled like jewels. As President and Sister McKay spoke of their family and their life together, their intertwined hands spoke volumes about their love. Joy radiated from their faces. Hers was a beauty that cannot be purchased. It came from years of seeking the best gifts, becoming well educated, seeking knowledge by study and also by faith. It came from years of hard work, of faithfully enduring trials with optimism, trust, strength, and courage. It came from her unwavering devotion and fidelity to her husband, her family, and the Lord.

On that fall day in Huntsville, Utah, I was reminded of my divine identity, and I learned about what I now call “deep beauty”—the kind of beauty that shines from the inside out. It is the kind of beauty that cannot be painted on, surgically created, or purchased. It is the kind of beauty that doesn’t wash off. It is spiritual attractiveness. Deep beauty springs from virtue. It is the beauty of being chaste and morally clean. It is the kind of beauty that you see in the eyes of virtuous women like your mother and grandmother. It is a beauty that is earned through faith, repentance, and honoring covenants.

Elaine S. Dalton, "Remember Who You Are!", April 2010 General Young Women Meeting

faithfully a hidden life.

"for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life."

- George Eliot, Middlemarch, pg. 799

faith.

"One's life cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share thy joy!' Real faith is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process."
(Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be wearied and Faint in Your Minds" Ensign, May 1991, 88,90.)

hope.

great image from Haiti . Evening Star.

"Embrace this day with an enthusiastic welcome, no matter how it looks. The covenant with God to which you are true enables you to become enlightened by him, and nothing is impossible for you"
- Elder Enzio f. Busche, BYU, May 1996 (video via Spencer)

I want to go. Should I forfeit Washington this summer and go?

patience.

photo by Lotte Scott

"I know what it's like to freeze to death"
- james taylor

studying.

image via audreyhepburncomplex

"for the world I count it not an Inn, but a Hospital, and a place not to live but to die in."
- Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici

I don't feel this way--I just read it and thought it was beautiful.

aliveness.

"I must learn to love the fool in me---the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant, whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."
- Theodore I. Rubin

duck xing.

"happiness is the currency by which we spend our days."
- Arthur C. Brooks, Why Giving Matters

send a note.

I don't think anything makes me happier than sending a heartfelt note. I think there is too little expression of how people really feel. if you think someone is fabulous, you should tell them.

"Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; say “I love you” more; always express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. Friends move away, children grow up, loved ones pass on. It’s so easy to take others for granted, until that day when they’re gone from our lives and we are left with feelings of “what if” and “if only.” Said author Harriet Beecher Stowe, 'The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.'" (Thomas S. Monson, Oct. 2008)

by a son to his mother:

"I don't remember much about her views of voting nor her social prestige; and what her ideas on child training, diet, and eugenics were, I cannot recall. The main thing that sifts back to me now through the thick undergrowth of years is that she loved me. She liked to lie on the grass with me and tell stories, or to run and hide with us children. She was always hugging me. And I liked it. She had a sunny face. To me it was like God, and all the beatitudes saints tell of Him. And Sing! Of all the sensations pleasurable to my life nothing can compare with the rapture of crawling up into her lap and going to sleep while she swung to and fro in her rocking chair and sang. Thinking of this, I wonder if the woman of today, with all her tremendous notions and plans, realizes what an almighty factor she is in shaping of her child for weal or woe. I wonder if she realizes how much sheer love and attention count for in a child's life."

writing times.

I've been thinking about regrets lately. about living with no regrets. does it mean that you live however you want to, but agree with yourself that you won't wish you'd never done it. or does no regrets mean you live in such a way that you would not regret your actions. I have lived with no regrets in the latter sense. but recently I have some regrets. and I wonder, am I to live with no regrets in the former? it seems like pretending to me. I will not let my regrets impede me from what I want to do in the future. I refuse to let my regrets become my baggage.

in 3rd grade, everyone who could do their times-tables in under 3 minutes (or was it 2?) by a certain date was invited to a pool party at Mrs. Cowley's house. I was the best times-table champion there was, and made it to the pool party. but we had to wear lifejackets. at 8 and 9 years old. I was so annoyed. I also remember confusion with who was driving me there, and something happening to my Aunt E. on the same day. after the party we were asked to write up how we enjoyed the party. well of course, I showed my true colors. and of course again, Mrs. Cowley read them all out loud. I was merciless in my account of the day and she was crushed. I remember going outside for recess and my friends wondering who wrote that. I was grateful they didn't know it was mine. I regret writing that. and maybe my future therapist can work it out with me. but there isn't much that I've written that I regret writing. I love writing.

my sister Melissa plays the piano devastatingly well. and when she plays, sometimes my heart breaks and my fingers ache to be able to do the same thing. but I simply can't. I am not free because I never paid the price of practicing the piano. indeed, a regret. but oh how I want to just sit down and have the freedom to play whatever I want. I think a lot of people feel this way about musical instruments. I have pondered deeply at my choice to not pursue the violin professionally, and we all wonder at times, is it enough to simply spectate? for now, I have come to terms with the reality that I cannot play the piano with the liberty I once wished to. and I listen with my whole heart, because that is all I can do.

I have made up my mind that there are some things that I cannot simply spectate. I want to write, because of what I have read. just as I want to play, because of what I have heard. because what Melissa plinks out on the piano has the capacity to capture my every emotion, I wish I could express the way she does. and the more I read, the more I must express. and there is often that overlap. what I want to say has already been said. but what I hope for is to be that for someone else. play the piano for people who can't. express my feelings, and capture others' emotions in a way they had never considered. when you almost kick yourself for not thinking of it on your own. (like when they invented the iPod!) I have experienced that, and want to create the experience for the rest of my life.

while summer is upon us, I am sorry that I blog seldom. not much sparks thoughts worth sharing, and when they do, I have found an alternate outlet. this blog has been a motivation for me to write; a kind of writing that I love and want to do for the rest of my life. it is more interesting, productive, worthy, to write for a reader. but lately, I have chosen to make my thoughts more private than public. writing in a journal has suddenly become rewarding for me. my past diaries are not much to read--only instances and happenings. but to fill them with my thoughts has now consumed me. I'm sorry that their public version is lacking.

.

From [the] majestic world of spirits we enter the grand stage
of life to prove ourselves obedient to all things commanded of God. During
mortality we grow from helpless infancy to inquiring childhood and then to
reflective maturity. We experience joy and sorrow, fulfillment and
disappointment, success and failure. We taste the sweet, yet sample the
bitter. This is mortality.

Then to each life comes the experience
known as death. None is exempt. All must pass its portals.

To
most, there is something sinister and mysterious about this unwelcome
visitor called death. Perhaps it is a fear of the unknown which causes many
to dread its coming. . . .

. . . [The Savior's] words
to the grieving Martha and to His disciples today bring comfort to
us:

'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

'And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die' (John
11:25-26).

'In my Father's house are many mansions:
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you.

'. . . I will come again, and receive you unto myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also' (John
14:2-3)."

- thomas s. monson

my new view from my new apartment at sunset.

may day.

welcome to may.