What I Thought and Did Earth Day, Part Three

The usual warnings continue to apply.   Parts One and Two here and here.

April 22, 2010, Earth Day and M’s birthday.   Twenty-four hours have passed since the doctor put his words out there.   I’m still hot with anger and grief, still breaking into sobs at the slightest twinge of thought.   I’ve examined M repeatedly for signs that the doctor saw something I’d missed.

Our whole family has traveled a difficult road to buy her the safety and time she needs to make what she can of her outraged life.   Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of hours lying beside her, searching her body with my eyes, questioning it with my fingertips as I’ve struggled to discover causes €”and relief €”for her episodes of suffering.   With my voice €”singing, asking, offering, praying €”I’ve reached into her pain and distress and felt the arms of her trouble wrap around me.   Intense involvement and careful inquiry has been the only way to approach understanding and to help her.   It’s the only way to reach many of these children.

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Get out there!

I don’t like to tell people what to do.   In fact, except for my kids, who lack imagination where performing necessary tasks is concerned, I’ve come to  dislike it extremely.    Well, even then.   But I’ve been thinking lately that Mormons  appear to be  beeline people, traveling in more or less straight lines between this or that field of responsibility and the home hive.   Work, home, school, home, temple, home, ward house, home, stake house, home, temple, home, Walmart— home, thank goodness!    

Is  Mormonism  an indoor culture?    

Whether  it is  or not, Earth Day is coming up April 22, less than  one week away.   If at all possible, I hope folks try to get outside, day or night, and  have a good look around.   And  consider taking  the kids.   Even if it’s backyard exploration or a half-hour jaunt to the local park.   Do a little bird-watching— populations are migrating right now, you might see something surprising.   No need to step very far out of your comfort zone, and please, don’t take unnecessary risks.   Keep it simple and close, if that’s your speed.   It’s all call of the wild.

The world’s  extraordinary, even when strange,  even  where it isn’t as beautiful as it used to be,  and it stands in needs of us.    Mormons.   Not to save it, but to abide with it, to wind ourselves deeper into its braid.      To change simply by witnessing, to be changed.   It’s the nature of spirituality to rise to the surface at the least opportunity.

So try?   Even for a few minutes.   Stop between buildings.    Wind down the car window.   Think about God’s taffy pull with  light, stretching it into  being, shuffling land and sea, granting earth permission to  sprout grass,  sprinkling stars around the sun and moon, invoking the waters to bring forth life, shaping animals upon their bones, and seeing it all as good.

It is good.   Even the seemingly bad  reflects glints  of good.

Get out and see for yourself.    I’ll be reporting on  my Earth Day activities, so if something cool happens to you while you’re out,  you’ll be able to post  about it  in the comments.

Like I said, not to tell people what to do (shudder), but to suggest a possibility.      People can’t have too many possibilities.