Diversity in Toronto

Thursday I went to a Tai Chi parade in Toronto. There were two gorgeous, long Chinese dragon puppets dancing along in the parade to the drums. Asian ladies were handing out free fans and flags. A Scottish pipe band played that included a Dutch-Malaysian piper, a half-Mexican piper, a Georgian (Russian) drummer, and an Italian-speaking Pipe Major. And then someone spoke to the crowd about Tai Chi entirely in German. Gotta love it!

Of Mankind and Meteors

It's 3:00 a.m. I'm in my fuzzy koala bear-motif bathrobe and bare feet, sitting on the back patio on a lawn chair. It's pitch black outside other than one street lamp on the other side of the fence. I'm cupping my hand around my eyes to block out the lamp, peering up at the sky. I'm hoping the clouds will part long enough for me to see stars, much less the meteor shower the newspapers have been promising us. And I'm thinking if I were in Timiskaming or up at Whole Village, I could probably see the night sky. My former boss is at his cottage in Penetanguishene, where I bet there's a whole skyful of stars shining over the water. Is it too late to jump in the car and head north?


At last there's a break in the cloud cover and I see a scattering of pinpoints of light. The clouds are moving so fast it makes me feel as if it's the stars zooming across the blackness, except they never move in relation to me. For an instant I glimpse the vastness of the turning heavens above me. And I feel suddenly very small.


I can't help but think about the news I see on TV or in the papers every day -- acts of terrorism, cities bombed, political posturing, shootings, poverty, famine, obsession with the economy -- and all at once mankind seems ludicrous. We are squabbling over a speck of dust hurtling through the universe. We are not even a blip on the screen, we are so infinitesimal. We're not piloting this planet we're riding. The laws of gravity and forces of nature are in charge of our course and we have no say at all in any of it. What makes us so pompous and self-centered? Why are we wasting our brief flash of life arguing with the others on our speck? We should just be enjoying the ride together and marveling at the sky.


I was about to go back inside, feeling rather sad and hopeless about the human condition...when I saw a meteor. A bright, long blaze swooping across a quarter of the sky to the west. And then the clouds covered everything over again and that was the end of the show. I went inside to get ready for work, to walk down to the bus station and start my daily slog...but my little corner of the speck seems different to me now.


Have you ever felt that change is coming but you don't know what it is? That's where I'm at right now.

Mormon Mom Blogs

I was astonished this morning to open my Metro newspaper on the subway and see the headline "Mormon mommies have the best blogs." It's not often you see Mormons in the paper here, and it's even more rare to have the article be something complimentary. Apparently our commitment to family, creativity, and general wholesomeness appeals to readers, LDS and non-LDS alike.


The article also pointed out that most Mormon bloggers try not to get too preachy and don't want to bombard their readers with their faith, and I have to say I do that myself. The purpose of my blog is to exercise my writing while hopefully entertaining a few people and stretching our thinking from time to time. I can't disconnect from who I am, of course, and my faith will inherently influence what I write, but evangelism isn't the purpose of the exercise. But there was one quote in the article that bugged me. Patrick Mason, the Howard W. Hunter chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California, is quoted as saying, "Mormons want nothing more than to be liked and respected and mainstream...They want to be just like everyone else but they want to be better at it."


If that were true, why bother becoming a Mormon in the first place? The point is not to be like the rest of the world. We aren't mainstream, and that's the whole idea. We haven't exactly withdrawn from the world, but we are trying to live differently, act and think differently, and we avoid the things of the world that can drag us down or distract us from our faith and our purpose. Our religion should set us apart from those around us, or what's the use of it? Our past shows we aren't afraid of being not liked and not respected if that's the result of living according to our beliefs. The world seems to be more tolerant of diversity now and it's been a long time since we were tarred and feathered and driven out of the country. But if it came down to it, I think any truly converted Mormon would be willing to go through pogroms and persecution again if necessary. (And I suppose in some countries that is still going on to some extent.) So I'm not sure why Patrick Mason would say such a thing, unless maybe he was misquoted.


I suppose there's also the danger in our blogs that we could be perceived as the DIY church, or the Church of the Happy-Looking Children, and the theology could become secondary or even buried. There needs to be a balance in there somewhere. There's a theological reason behind the self-reliance and the smiling children. Our religion informs everything about us, from our clothing styles and diet to the way we think and speak and how we spend our time and money. It influences our hopes and ambitions and where we stand and what paths we take in life. If our beliefs don't change us and make us different, we aren't living according to them very well.

Monks and Pizza

Last week my husband went to a Zen meditation session at a Korean temple he'd never been to before. The abbot in charge had just had foot surgery and had only gotten out of the hospital an hour earlier (they kept him in an extra few days because they knew he wouldn't hold still and rest when they sent him home). Ordinarily the abbot cooks the evening meal while participants are in the meditation session, but last week of course he didn't feel up to it. He had arranged for a Vietnamese group to bring in food, but for various reasons they didn't arrive. So the abbot, ever practical, ordered in Pizza Pizza, which I thought was charming.

This week I attended with my husband, and the group was welcoming and kind. I felt I'd known some of them for ages. The abbot, true to form, kept leaving his wheelchair to hobble about. A smiling, chuckling Korean monk, he made you feel like laughing for no reason, and as I watched the others as they knelt to listen to his dharma talk, I could see real love in their faces. He cooked the meal while we meditated, an interesting and yummy cold broth (with ice cubes floating in it) over a dense tangle of noodles, sliced cucumbers, and bamboo. And he didn't sit down once while we ate, but continued to bustle about on his bandaged foot. The man doesn't rest. It felt wrong to sit and eat while this obviously unwell man worked in the kitchen, but I was told this is how he wants to serve. He never sits to eat with the others.

When we left, the abbot was out watering the garden. There was a woman there last night who didn't participate in the session but stayed instead out in the garden, sitting on a bench. I assume she has cancer, as she was bald and extremely thin and frail. She looked to be in some distress, holding her head and fighting tears, and my first impulse was to go to her. But the abbot calmly moved around the garden, watering the plants with the hose, giving the woman space but always in the vicinity. Just letting her know he was present but not intruding. And I thought I understood why the woman came. It is an accepting, warm, and peaceful place. He may not be able to heal her body, but you could sense she felt he and the temple could soothe her spirit. There's something nourishing about them.

The abbot told us with a laugh that he has kidney failure and has to go back to Nuclear Medicine at the hospital twice this week. I told him he has to be healthy, because I only just found him and have things to learn from him.

My husband and I are contemplating joining the group for a three-day meditation retreat in September. It depends on whether I can find a dog sitter, and whether I think my body is up to three days of the half-lotus position, which right now sounds scary. But I've been wanting more inner contentment, and it sounds like a good way to kick-start the journey.

In the Good Ol' Summertime

One of my bosses asked me if I was having a relaxing summer. My first response was yes, I'm reading a lot and swimming now and then and...and bottling fruit and caring for two gardens and drying herbs and meeting writing deadlines for the publisher and going to Highland Games and walking my dogs and setting up a loom and crocheting Christmas ornaments to sell this fall and mowing the lawn and going on weekend drives with my husband and I'm first counselor in the Relief Society at church and I'm taking teacher training once a month and oh yeah, I work a sixty-hour week...but I only have one son left at home, who is pretty independent, and my husband does most of the cleaning and cooking. So yeah, actually, it feels pretty calm this summer. This is about as relaxed as I get.

Struck me funnier...

The aforementioned son who wanted me to fix his snack is starting college in a couple of weeks...studying to become a chef.

Struck me funny

Shouted down to my soon-to-be-18-year-old son, who wanted me to make him a snack: "You're an adult now! You can pour your own bowl of Froot Loops!"