Friday, October 23, 2015

Superheroes and Such


Sure do love these cuties! 
I love how L looks to E and up at her "Batgirl Costume."
I also secretly love how 2 1/2 year old L runs around in the morning saying,"Stuperman!"






Five People I Wish to Meet in the Hereafter--Elizabeth Barret-Browning

Poet's story stirs tender emotions at Education Week

Published: Friday, Aug. 17 2012 5:00 a.m.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning has been gone for more than 150 years, but her poetry and life story continue to inspire many today.
That was one of the main themes expressed by S. Michael Wilcox to a capacity crowd gathered in the Harris Fine Arts Center at Brigham Young University's Campus Education Week on Wednesday.
Wilcox, an author and retired Church Educational System instructor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talked about the famous Victorian poet as part of his series on "Magnificent Humanity, Great Souls — Five People I Wish to Meet in the Hereafter."
"What an honor it will be to meet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and express my appreciation, particularly at this time in my life," Wilcox said. "It’s a hope-filled, love story."
For about the first 38 years of her life, Elizabeth's life was full of heartache and sadness. She lost her mother and a little sister when she was young. As a teenager, she suffered one miserable sickness after another. Her closest sibling, a brother she affectionately nicknamed "Bro," died in a sail boat accident.
After a horse-back riding accident around age 14, she became addicted to opium as a pain killer and formed a negative outlook on life. In addition to fragile health, her father forbid his children of ever getting married. Although Elizabeth gained popularity with her poetry, she became reclusive, lost hope of ever finding love, often remained in bed and rarely left her upstairs room.
"This was her life. She was afraid to be happy because she was worried it would be taken away," Wilcox said. "But she had a poet’s soul, and a capacity to love and be loved.”
As she approached her 40th birthday, she wrote a poem that changed her life. In a poem titled "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," she offered tribute to a budding poet named Robert Browning.
Browning responded with a heartfelt thank you.
“I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,” Browning wrote to Elizabeth in 1845.
During the next 20 months, the couple exchanged nearly 600 letters and developed a deep friendship. Browning wanted to meet her, but Elizabeth was afraid he would see her and want to end the relationship. She told him no, but he was persistent.
Finally, she invited Browning to come over one Tuesday when her father would not be home. "We’ll be friends until Tuesday," she said.
Wilcox said Browning picked flowers and came to the Barrett home. Elizabeth heard his footsteps on the stairs and feared his reaction upon seeing her. To her relief, they had a wonderful visit.
"After so much pain, suffering and being afraid of happiness, that first meeting became 'her great compensation day,'" Wilcox said.
Shortly thereafter, Browning wrote a letter asking Elizabeth to marry him, but she responded, "if you ever say marriage again, our friendship is over." He continued to visit and write to her, and with time, she began to live again. Around age 40, she started walking down the stairs by herself and went outside for the first time in years. She picked a flower and sent it in a letter to her Robert.
"Her confidence in his love developed, and she knew she would marry him, but dreaded her father. All he saw were two poets talking poetry, which is dangerous," Wilcox said. "Who would marry Elizabeth? But she was in love and love changes you."
Browning was patient and eventually the couple married secretly. Despite knowing her father would disown her, they left for a honeymoon. She left a note asking her father to forgive her, but they would never speak again. The Brownings settled in Florence, Italy, where they lived happily, traveled and wrote poetry.
"I am living as in a dream," Wilcox quoted Elizabeth, "like riding an enchanted horse."
She had two miscarriages, then gave birth to a healthy son she nicknamed "Pen." When Browning's mother died, he fell into depression. Elizabeth had kept his stack of letters and a collection of 44 sonnets in which she expressed her feelings for him, even though he didn't think it right for poets to express personal feelings in their work. It was her sonnets, later published as "Sonnets of the Portuguese," that pulled him out of his depression.
The Brownings' time together in Italy was rich and fulfilling, but eventually came to an end when Elizabeth died in 1861. Wilcox described the intimate final moments of her life when she said farewell to her faithful husband.
“My Robert, my heaven, my beloved, our lives are held by God, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you," Wilcox quoted Elizabeth. "It is beautiful."
Wilcox said Browning had the chance to remarry but didn't because, "My heart and soul is buried in Florence."
With women weeping and the sound of sniffles resonating around the auditorium, Wilcox recounted how his late wife, Laurie, introduced him to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry. "She became part of our relationship," he said.
Before Laurie died of cancer a few years ago, he whispered one of his favorite lines into her ear as she lay in a hospital bed.
"I love with the breath, smiles, tears of my life, — and, if God so choose I shall love thee better after death," he said.
Wilcox concluded by sharing several lessons he learned from Elizabeth's life and love story.
  • "The greatest discovery is that the woman you love, loves you back.”
  • "We never know what life will bring. The unexpected life can be great and bring unexpected blessings."
  • "Elizabeth knew she was born for some great cause, that she had been sent to earth for some great purpose. She felt this in her heart."
  • "Never doubt the possibility of footsteps on the stairs."
  • "Live with gratitude and joy. We may yet have our great compensation date."
"May each of us love and be loved as Elizabeth and Robert," Wilcox said.

Small and Simple Things

It was one of those "summers without a Summer" for our family who moved shortly before school started after a long remodel.

Our new neighbors hosted a Welcome Block Party for our family.

One of the neighbors, Lydia, was wearing a beautiful necklace. I complimented her on it before realizing I had seen it before! Not this one, but one just as unique and identical had been brought home a couple of months earlier by my "treasure finder" son.

It had an intricate silver chain and a round diamond set in a circular filigree setting with chips of diamond surrounding it.



Lydia mentioned it was a gift from her mother to herself and each of her daughters and was precious to her.

"Did you loose one?" I asked. "My daughter, Rachel, lost hers awhile ago! She was sick about it. We looked and looked but never found it,"Lydia replied.

I told her my son brought a necklace home and we tried but didn't find the owner so I put it on a shelf and forgot about it.

She came up after the party and I went to get the necklace. It was not there!

Store returns and miscellaneous things were piled on the shelf but the corner where I had safely tucked it, there was no necklace.

We said a prayer together and began searching: moving things systematically, sweeping the floors, going through moving boxes beneath the shelves. After about an hour and a half of searching, I found the chain dangling off the far side of the shelf.  More searching and the pendant remained lost.

Lydia had remarked several times,"Oh Rachel really needs this right now!"
 Before Lydia left, she took the chain and said she would not tell Rachel about the necklace yet.

After putting kids to sleep, I stayed up searching several more hours. It was like looking for the elusive needle in a haystack.  Because of our recent move and the remodel still going on, we had boxes upon boxes stacked in dust and building debris. The challenge seemed too much.

"Why would Heavenly Father have my son find and bring home this necklace, only to have it disappear again!?"

A scripture I had heard recently ran through my mind. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." (Mark 9:23) I believe!  I am going to find that pendant!

The following evening was trash night.  After a full night with children and family responsibilities, I once again put my kids and spouse to bed and then began searching again.  I brought up the garbage cans from the street, worries that my daughter's vigorous vacuum cleaning in the area where the necklace was lost would mean that she had thrown it out with the vacuum contents.

I had been praying intermittently knowing that with God ALL things are possible.  If anyone knew where that pendant was, He did.  Why did he not answer my prayer?

I had learned in Sunday School that faith was an "action word" and required work for it to happen.

Towards morning, my son came outside to join me.  I still had not found the necklace. Disheartened, I was sifting through dirt in an outside planting box collecting old screws and metal to throw into the trash before returning it to the street when my hand picked up an unusual "screw."  It was shaped just like a brass bracelet that I had been given the Summer of my Freshman year.  It had disappeared many years before! I felt comforted that even though it was not the necklace, Heavenly Father was aware of me and my prayers.  The thought came again--keep searching.



A few days later, I was cleaning some rocks that line a large painted mural in the basement prior to new carpet coming.  I climbed up to an area not cleaned for some time and felt behind the rock and found a pendant.  My hand brought a necklace pendant I had never seen before! (Judging from where it was laying behind a rock, it had fallen through a crevice in the ceiling.)




At one point of excessive worry the impression came--do not give up on this search but put it to the back of your thoughts for now.

Weeks past and I had forgotten it with the hectic pace of a large, busy family of young children.

Last Friday the scripture in Mark 9 came back to me. 
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Then a thought came and displaced the doubt and fear I still harbored. "I do not know the Lord's timing, but I know He hears and has answered my prayers in the past. I'm just going to have faith and believe."

Sunday after Church, my son Jonathan knocked on my door.  "Mom, Dad.  It's important."
When I opened the door, he came to our room with the pendant in his hand!

He had found it on his floor at the foot of his bed?!

This doesn't make sense because we had taken all his clothes to be washed and I wrote him a note the night before thanking him for making his bed and tidying his room. I had sat at his desk, looked at his bed and nothing was on his floor or by his bed.

It DID give me an opportunity to bear testimony to my kids and our foreign exchange student about God hearing and answering prayers and being concerned with the details of our lives--even the small, seemingly insignificant things (on a grand scale). 

I delivered the necklace back to Rachel and Lydia--who started to cry and gave me a big hug. (Also, I shared the story first with a bishopric member at a temple recommend mtg. This man has lost his house to the bank and has been praying for guidance. I hope the Lord spoke to him through this simple story.)

I was marveling yesterday because even though it was unexpected, the answer came about miraculously.  Do miracles still happen today? The definition of a miracle is "a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency."

Is it possible that many small and simple miracles happen often but I either do not have "eyes to see them" or "ears to hear them" or the energy to record all the ways the Lord plays a part in my everyday life?

We have been "ponderizing" on Alma 37:6-7
6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

I feel pretty small and simple but yesterday we were rejoicing over the "lost coin."

Luke 15:9
 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.


Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Paintings of Jesus

XYears ago, while a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints to Finland staying in the Missionary Training Center (MTC), I saw a picture of Christ that has haunted me ever since.  It hung outside the President's Office.
In the painting, Christ sits on the edge of a well.  A staircase is to his right (my left). His eyes.  His eyes held such depth of saddness that it was the first time I had seen a visual representation of the Lord and felt that the artist had truly captured a bit of His soul.  I regret not taking a picture with my old, film loaded "point and shoot" camera.
Now when I see pictures of Christ I am not familiar with, I take a picture to look at later.






Do you see what I see?

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Family Halloween Party (Part 1)

This year was our first Halloween Party in the Arapahoe House! 
Campbell Family Costume Theme was "Superheroes!"
We tried a fun new Pumpkin Dip (pumpkin purée, Cool Whip, vanilla pudding, and Pumpkin Pie Spice) served with fresh ape slices, ginger snaps, or Nilla Waffers. 
We ate our traditional Dinner in a Pumpkin and hot dogs for little people.