Dirty Grout and a Nail Brush

Several years ago we replaced our vinyl kitchen floor with tile. My more experienced friends, like a Greek chorus, tried to warn me of the impending doom. 

“Noooo!” they cried. “Don’t do it! You will be fighting filthy grout for the rest of your life.”

But we did it anyway. Tile just seemed so sturdy, impervious to damage. Surely the grout thing couldn’t be that bad.

But within weeks the lovely tan-colored grout (Notice the second mistake I made—choosing light-colored grout) was turning dark. A few months later anyone walking into my kitchen would think my light brown tiles were fashionably accented with black grout. Except that the black grout was only in the traffic areas; the lighter grout remained by the wall and in some corners, mocking me, and clearly showing that the grout was not black but filthy.

Sure, I mopped the floor and tried to keep it clean. But the grout remained black. Once I even hired a steam cleaning company to work their magic. But no magic ensued. “Hmm.” The befuddled cleaner mused, “Guess it’s not going to come up.”

So I figured this was just my punishment for not listening to my wise friends. I was stuck--filthy grout for the rest of my life or until I replaced the tile with wood flooring or vinyl. Years went by.  I kept telling myself that no one noticed the black grout was really filth.

Then, just last week I was talking on the phone when I noticed a spill on the floor. I grabbed a rag to wipe it up and in my scrubbing I happened to scrub extra hard on the grout.

Guess what? Some of the dirt came up. I was amazed.

My phone call ended and I grabbed a bucket, spray cleaner, a micro-fiber rag, and a nail brush. You know, one of those little scrub brushes you use for getting dirt out from under your finger nails when you’ve been gardening? I sprayed the grout, let it sit a minute, then scrubbed. Years of dirt pooled in the water around the grout. I scrubbed some more, then wiped with the rag, and—hallelujah! The original tan grout appeared.

I put an audible book on my phone and set to work. In a couple of hours, my arms felt like I’d been lifting weights, but most of my floor looked like it did when it was installed: beige tile, tan grout, clean floor.

I was amazed. All those years I suffered every time I looked at that floor. All those years of being embarrassed. All those years of thinking I had no control over this situation.

All I needed to do was listen to a few chapters of a book and work out my upper body. All I needed to do was take control and try. All I needed to do was know that I was not helpless.

Makes me wonder how many other seemingly impossible problems I can actually solve, if I try.

“Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed” (D&C 123: 17). 

Of Evil and the God Who Weeps

In Sunday School class a good man asked, “Why don’t I see more blessings in my life? I try hard to do what is right. I keep the commandments, I serve others. And now I’ve lost my job. How can the Lord let that happen?”

Another time a friend sat in my living room and shared. “I’ve always believed the Lord won’t give you more than you can bear, but now I have cancer, and I can’t bear it. How could he do this to me?”

On Facebook recently, someone shared a news account of a baby who was horrifically abused by his parents. The poster prefaced the news account with her own comment: “How can anyone believe in God? If there were a God, he would not let things like this happen.”

I’m thinking about these comments this week because of a thoughtful essay I read in the Sunday New York Times, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me,” by Kate Bowler. Ms. Bowler, an assistant professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School, has recently completed a scholarly book about Christians who believe God rewards the faithful with physical blessings, what she calls the prosperity gospel, “the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith” (Kate Bowler, NY Times, February 14, 2016).

Do we expect God to reward us with temporal, physical blessings because we are good? Conversely, do we believe that those who do not follow the commandments will be punished by God?

 If this were the case, surely the hospitals would be filled with non-believers. But of course, we know this isn’t true.

Ms. Bowler has also recently received a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer. Though she is a scholar studying the cultural phenomenon of the Prosperity Gospel, and didn’t really expect God to reward her with good health, she now finds herself asking, “Why me?” She explains her response to her illness.

The most I can say about why I have cancer, medically speaking, is that bodies are delicate and prone to error. As a Christian, I can say that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here, and so we get sick and die. And as a scholar, I can say that our society is steeped in a culture of facile reasoning. What goes around comes around. Karma is a bitch. And God is always, for some reason, going around closing doors and opening windows. God is super into that. (Bowler)

But I have also wondered  why God won't fix the problems in my life. I know he can. I have the faith. Like the woman with an issue of blood, I yearn to touch the hem of his garment and have my problems go away.

Sometimes it’s harder when you have the faith. You know God could do it—heal the dying son-in-law, cast out the demons of mental illness, send an angel to return a child to faith. He has done it before, and why doesn’t he do it now, for you?

I don’t know the answer to that, still. But I do have some thoughts.

God’s purpose is to help us become like him. This isn’t going to happen if this life is easy. So we lose our jobs and don’t have enough money or time or patience.

To help us grow, God gives us freedom to act as we will and to suffer the consequences of our behavior. He will not force us to do anything. Because of this bad people do bad things and mostly he doesn’t stop them. We suffer the consequences of our own bad choices and the bad choices of others.

As a schoolroom, He gives us a flawed, mortal world in which to live in flawed mortal bodies. This means that our bodies get sick and die.

God also offers us the ultimate help. He doesn’t say he will not give you more than you can bear. What he does say is he will help you to bear whatever you must bear, and teach you through your suffering. In other words he is not as concerned about what happens to you but how you react to it. He says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

I love this story in the Book of Mormon. The people of Alma have been made captive, forced to serve cruel masters, not even allowed to pray. But they pray silently, and this is the answer to their prayers.

And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs. . . .And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord” (Mosiah 24:14-15; emphasis added).

The people of Alma were not immediately freed from their captivity, but they were given the strength to bear their burdens. I think that is the miracle that most of us can look for in our lives. Not that the unbearable trials we face will be taken from us, but that through faith we may be given the strength to bear them, and to even grow better through the trial.

And I do know God love us, and he weeps for our sorrows, for all the sorrow, pain, injustice, and tragedy in this mortal world.

In the Mormon book of Scripture called The Pearl of Great Price, God has a conversation with Enoch. In vision, Enoch sees with God the great suffering of God’s children. He also sees God weep. Startled, Enoch asks, “How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?” (Moses 7:29)

God answers, “They are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave them their knowledge . . .; and . . . gave I unto man his agency; . . . .wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer? (Moses 7: 32, 37)

So, when we lose our jobs or suffer illness or pain or sorrow or death, when children are abused, when refugees are torn from their homes, when populations are massacred, we can know that God weeps for us, for the entire world. And then he stretches out his hands, in love and compassion, to help us bear whatever it is, and to help us become more like him. 

Photo credit: James Christensen, Touching the Hem of God

Birthdays and Free Will

This week I celebrate a birthday, so I’m remembering birthdays past. Here’s a memory I am not proud of.

On my 22^nd birthday, my life was pretty wonderful. As a graduate student I studied great literature and I taught good students. I lived with delightful friends—girls I had lived with for years and with whom I had formed a kind of family. (You can see them in the photo here.) I had a boyfriend who was kind and funny (not the kind and funny man I married, by the way).

But my birthday was not wonderful. I woke up with expectations that all these good people would make a fuss over me. And they didn’t. No “Happy Birthday!” from my roommates. No birthday breakfast from my boyfriend. No impromptu birthday songs and cake in the graduate carrels. Nothing. All. Day. Long.

I, of course, remained silent. No hints, no reminders. But my hurt and anger grew and grew. Finally, when my poor boyfriend picked me up after dinner so we could go study at the library, as we always did, I blew up, right there in his rusty red 1965 Volkswagen bug. I cried and carried on and accused him and everyone I knew. Clearly, nobody cared about me.

We drove around. He listened. Finally, he said, “Well, I think I’d better take you home now.”

Tears still in my eyes, anger still in my heart, I walked through the door.

“Surprise!”

 There was a big sign, a big cake, and all my friends were singing. I was crying and laughing and feeling really stupid.

The next year, I had the same boyfriend. He had learned a lesson. That year he took me out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and produced a gift at every meal.

It took me longer to learn from that day. In face I’m still thinking about it.

I can think of several lessons I could learn. One is to let people know what my expectations are, rather than blaming them for not doing what they didn’t know I wanted them to do.

Another really good one would be to not be so selfish, not to assume the world revolves around me, even on my birthday.

Or I could just learn to have more faith in those I love, and to know that they wish the best for me as I wish the best for them. Maybe a surprise party is being planned!

But here is the lesson I’m thinking of now. The way other people treat me does not determine how I feel. I can choose whether I am happy or unhappy. I could have made that birthday a happy one by making breakfast for my roommates, by bringing candy to the graduate carrels, by taking time to think about the past year and the future year and all the good in my life.

I am responsible for my own happiness. I have that freedom and I have that responsibility.

But, still, I’m really glad my good husband, children, and friends made me feel loved and happy on my birthday. The party, the cake, the presents, and the flowers were great!

”Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;  For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.”

Doctrine and Covenants 58:27-28

"Who Knoweth But . . .": Change and Attitude

When I was nine years old my dad received a big promotion. It was a great opportunity and as far as I know, my parents never considered turning it down. But this great promotion meant that our family would have to leave the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area of California, where my parents had lived for practically their entire married life. Worse yet, our destination was Minnesota. We were leaving the land of perfect weather and west coast sophistication for the land of a million lakes, humid mosquito-filled summers, and 20-below- zero blizzards.

I’ll never forget my mother’s description of the place after her trip there to look for a house. She went in March, when the chest-high drifts were melting and slushy. To tour homes, she had slogged through freezing mud and snow and sleet. I don’t remember her even trying to put a happy face on our new home in the north. For a gift she brought me something I had never owned before, footed flannel pajamas. “You’ll need them now,” she said darkly.

Still, we moved. For the first year or so my mom and I struggled. I missed my California friends and pretended I could communicate with them through telepathy. In school they made me do multiplication, which I hadn’t learned before, and they made me go outside in the snow at recess, even when it was super cold. Tears would leak out my eyes at the slightest problem.

But in a year or so, I made friends and learned to love the green summers and white winters. Minnesota became home, and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Ten years later, my dad retired and we made plans to return to California. After the house was sold and the moving van loaded, my mom, dad, and I (now in college) sat in the car and looked at our lovely home and the tree-filled neighborhood. Silently we drove off. That night, we stopped in a motel in South Dakota, where I lay in the other bed and listened to my mother sob in my father’s arms.

But here is the lesson. In another year, my parents were happily settled in beautiful California.

It is always hard to leave what we know and go to what we don’t know. But we have to do it all the time.  My mom hated to leave California, and in ten years, she hated to leave Minnesota. But in both cases, we found happiness where we went.  I wish that my mom and I could have expected to find happiness sooner, I wish that instead of mourning my old friends and complaining about the cold, I could have seen the adventure and the joy of making new friends and trying new things.

I wish I had been more like the brother of Jared, in the Book of Mormon. His family had lived at the time of the Tower of Babel, had seen the confusion of languages, the loss of community. A refugee, cut off from all he had known, he had every right to complain. But instead of despairing, he and his family prayed for guidance, trusting that good things could be before them. They looked forward to better times in a better place, saying “Who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth?”

I’m thinking about this now, because my son has a great new job which means he will have to leave a beautiful home in a wooded neighborhood, by a lovely creek, walking distance from the library. They will leave dear friends and a great nanny. I feel for them, knowing how hard it is. I’m hoping they can realize that what is before can be as good—or even better than--what they have now. It might be a land choice above all the earth. I hope they can look for happiness in the change ahead.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say. I’m not the one moving.

“And it came to pass that Jared spake again unto his brother, saying: Go and inquire of the Lord whether he will drive us out of the land, and if he will drive us out of the land, cry unto him whither we shall go. And who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth? And if it so be, let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance.” (The Book of Mormon, Ether 1:38) 

"They Might Not Need Me; But They Might"

In the Mormon church, when someone in our ward congregation dies, the ward donates the funeral lunch for the family, usually between 80 and 120 people. In my experience, this is one of the sweetest acts of service we do, as the whole ward contributes to providing this peaceful, healing meal.

One woman has the responsibility of coordinating all the service; in our ward right now this is Crystal. On Sunday she passes around a “sign-up sheet” on which ward members volunteer to help. The day before the services Crystal brings disposable pans to everyone who volunteered to make cake or potatoes. The men clean the building and set up tables and chairs in the gym.

On the day of the services, women arrive around 10 in the morning to cover the tables with white linen and decorate with the centerpieces and table toppers we keep in a closet. After the services, while the family is at the cemetery, the donated food begins to arrive. The ward budget has paid for ham and Crystal has sliced it, covered it in glaze, and wrapped it in foil, ready to warm in the church kitchen ovens. As the women come to the kitchen door with their offerings, Crystal checks off her list: 5 green salads for 20, 6 sheet cakes, 6 dozen rolls, and 6 pans of “funeral potatoes,” the rich, cheesy side dish that is comfort in your mouth.

When the family arrives, the volunteers cover long linen-covered tables with all the delicious food and serve out the cake. The family visits and mingles as they eat the food provided in love. The women keep the serving table full and watch to be sure no one lacks anything. They stand and wait while the family visits as long as they want.

When, little by little, the guests leave the building, always stopping by the kitchen to say thanks, there is more work to be done. Men arrive to take down the tables and chairs. The centerpieces are stacked in the closet once again, and the table cloths are piled up, ready for Crystal to take home and launder. Leftovers are packaged to take to the sick and the elderly in the neighborhood.

At this point, those who have been at the church all day are a little weary. And this is when Kim appears.

Kim works, she has a young family, and she doesn’t much like to cook. But she does get off work around 3. So whenever there is a funeral, this is what Kim does. She shows up just as the rest of us are succumbing to exhaustion. Smiling and cheerful, she sets about wiping counters and washing dishes. She scoots us out of the kitchen as she wields a mop. “You all head home. I’ll take care of the rest.”

She probably only spends 20-30 minutes in her service. But oh how appreciated it is!

I learn from Crystal the great benefits of devoting long hours to service, of putting one’s own needs and well-being aside for a time in order to provide those in need with comfort and sustenance.

And I learn from Kim that even a small act of service can provide huge relief.

So the lesson is to serve. If you are in a position to give freely of time or money or talent, enjoy that opportunity to share.

But if you ever feel you are too busy or too incompetent or too poor to provide service, try to find some small way to help out anyway. Write a note, share a smile, mop the floor.  The little bit you offer may look small to you, but may make all the difference to those you serve.

“They might not need me; but they might.
I'll let my head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.” 
― Emily Dickinson

“Give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.” (Luke 11:41)