The One Less Ordinary

I have been thinking a lot these last few days about music. For me, it is the cure for ordinary. It is something that transcends daily life and takes everything to a higher level.

I hope you will like this great arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by Jason Barney. My friend Garry was in town and very graciously agreed to sing in church with only an evening's notice, and then we took an hour in the afternoon that Sunday and recorded the song. Being able to perform that Sunday was a tender mercy for me. I loved doing it, and since Garry lives many hours away, there are precious few opportunities to make live music. I’m so glad we recorded it, because now I have a soundtrack for my memory of that day. Tonight I finished producing it so that I could put it up here for you. I have listened to it more times than I can count, yet I still feel the Savior near when I hear it. I hope you feel the same.

The One With the Prodigal

And now for something completely different.

A new song. And yes... I know, I know... this song is actually kind of country! I am more an alternative rock girl, but listen. This song has all of my blood, sweat and tears in it. When I wrote it, the order went: first music, then words, then title. That is pretty much the opposite of how I usually do it. But I wrote the music months ago. It is so difficult to just come up with words to fit music. One night I finally decided, either I come up with lyrics for this tonight, or I am just going to have to throw the music away. Well, I got the words that night... one verse at a time. I finished it, and then thought to myself, “What is the title?”

And then I read back over the words as though they were a poem. And I saw it. I had written my own version of the Prodigal Son. It was a revelation. I love the story of the prodigal son. It is funny though... when I was younger, I identified with the brother. The one who never went astray. I thought that was who I was in the story. I guess I identified with him, and with the unfairness of a wayward sibling that sweeps in after all of the bad things he has done, and everyone makes a big deal of him, even though I have been here all along, trying to do the right thing. Do you ever think that? But as I got older, it hit me. We are all the prodigal! Every one of us. The story of the prodigal is the about the Atonement.

I tried to find some art to go with this post, and everything was too sad looking to go with my upbeat song, so I borrowed Brian Kershisnik’s beautiful Father and Son Dancing once again. I just think it is beautiful, and it has its own story.


Prodigal Son

I’ve been walking this path for far too long
I feel weak
It’s harder and harder to breathe
I know
It’s just a case of choosing right or wrong
But in this dark place
Sometimes I can barely see.

Show me
The way I can finally be free
There’s a fire that’s burning inside of my soul
I am ready now
To give all my sins and hurt to thee
Take my troubles
I’m giving them all away.

You have had the perfect answers all along
You tried to tell me
But I didn’t have ears to hear
Now there’s music where before I heard no song
And when you sing
The message becomes so clear

Will you show me
The way I can finally be free?
There’s a fire that is burning inside of my soul
I am ready now
To give all my sins to thee
Lay my troubles down
At my Savior’s feet
I’m giving them all away.

Please forgive me for the times I turned away
How’d I forget that
I was my father’s son?
I let temptation lead me so far astray
That it left me
No other choice but to run.

I think I see
The way I can finally be free
There’s a fire that is burning inside of my soul
I am ready now
To give all my sins to thee
Lay my troubles down
I’m giving them all away.

Lay my troubles down
I’m giving them all away.

Still, it’s not enough to say that I’ve come home
I’m your servant
Yearning to do my part
Father, as long as I live I’ll never roam
Just look inside me
You’ll find a disciple’s heart

Now I finally see
How to live and be free
There’s a fire that’s burning inside of my soul
I am ready now
To give all my sins to thee
Lay my troubles down
At my Savior’s feet
I’m giving them all away.

The One For the Fourth

This isn’t exactly for Independence Day. But I was thinking about soldiers... and why we care about independence in the first place. This is one of my latest. I hope you like it.

Right Here Where I Stand

Once the Lord of all the earth
Descended lower than us all.
His power spent to purchase grace
No one left to heed his call.
At the last, he stood there, left alone
With only love that has no end.
But as long as I can draw a breath,
He’ll never stand alone again.

I will stand
And I will wait for him.
I will never be ashamed.
I will stand and wait for him
And bear his holy name.
My heart is not troubled
I am not afraid.
I know he will find me
Right here where I stand.

You know it is not easy
This war we fight each day.
We are strangers in this foreign land
Soldiers caught up in the fray.
And some days I grow weary
Until I think I cannot fight
But then I see him suffering there for me
And struggle on with all my might.

In the fiery wind of battle
I can hear the desperate cries
Of wounded men who wander, blind
From smoke that clouds their eyes.
If they can only hold on
And hear the Savior’s call
I will find my brothers and carry them.
I may bleed, but I will never fall.

I will stand
And I will wait for him.
I will never be ashamed.
I will stand and wait for him
And bear his holy name.
My heart is not troubled
I am not afraid.
I know he will find me,
He’ll come again in all his glory
And when he comes that day, he’ll find me
Right here where I stand.
Murray Felkner

The One Where They Went Home

Tomorrow two of my very favorite missionaries go home. I haven’t seen them in months… but it is still strange to think that they won’t be here in my mission, and that they won’t be full-time missionaries any longer. Two years of service is quite an offering to God, don’t you think? When you look at most nineteen- to 21-year-old men in the world, there is a stark contrast from our missionaries. I have heard people call it “two years of sacrifice.” I suppose in a way, it is. But most of the missionaries I know do not think of it as a sacrifice, but rather a privilege.

One thing that I have noticed about the very best missionaries… a thing that sets them apart from the rest… is that their desire to bring souls to Jesus Christ through baptism, and their desire to serve… is always far greater than their ultimately human ability to accomplish. No matter how many people they find, teach, baptize and serve, it cannot not match their desire to do so much more.

This desire can be a great thing. It is a motivator. It drives them to work harder, to pray harder… to be more and more obedient to the rules. But it can also be a source of discouragement when their results do not reach their desires. But this, I believe, is where an amazing doctrine comes into play. I don’t believe that we are judged solely on our accomplishments. I have heard people say that Mormons think they are “working their way to heaven.” We actually don’t believe that at all!

There is a part of the Atonement that we call “grace.” Through this beautiful principle of grace, the Savior has the power to add his perfecting power to our daily efforts. He adds to us. I believe that if you are looking at two years of a mission as an offering to the Lord, you take all the work, all the baptisms, all the service. And then, through the power of the Atonement, you add the righteous desires and what is in your heart… the perfecting power of the Savior, Jesus Christ. And that, finally, is the sum total of a mission. That is your offering to the Lord. And when you look at it that way, it is not just “the best two years.” You don’t just “return with honor.” To describe it in such commonplace terms does not do it the justice it demands.

Without the Atonement, a mission is a great thing to do. But through the grace of Jesus Christ, for whom these missionaries serve, a mission becomes something infinitely more. It becomes glorious, even triumphant. Through grace, we become so much more than we ever could by our own efforts. None of us could ever work our way to heaven.

When my own sons return from their missions, I feel what a bittersweet thing it is to finish a mission. Watching them, it has even become a bittersweet thing for me. I feel a little pain, realizing how the mission goes on without them, wherever they served, and yet I am so happy to welcome them home. I must say, I’m a little sad today, thinking that this is the last day of my friends’ missions. But I hope tomorrow is rewarding for these two great families and their missionaries. I pray they can catch a glimpse of that glory and triumph peeking through. There is a little magic in that… the real kind.

Another Sunday One

I’m teaching the young women at church today. About forgiveness. There is a story I have always loved from the book “The Miracle of Forgiveness” by Spencer W. Kimball. He talks about a woman who “climbed the heights of self-control as she forgave the man who disfigured her lovely face.” He then gives the account from UP newsman Neal Corbett, as it appeared in newspapers throughout the country:

“I would think he must be suffering; anybody who’s like that, we ought to feel sorry for him,” said April Aaron of the man who had sent her to a hospital for three weeks, following a brutal San Francisco knife attack. April Aaron is a devout Mormon, 22 years of age… She is a secretary who’s as pretty as her name, but her face has just one blemish— the right eye is missing. April lost it to the ‘wildly slashing knife of a purse snatcher,’ near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park while en route to a [youth] dance last April 18. She also suffered deep slashes on her left arm and right leg during a struggle with her assailant, after she tripped and fell in her efforts to elude him just one block from the Mormon chapel…

“I ran for a block and a half before he caught me. You can’t run very fast on high heels,” April said with a smile. Slashes on her leg were so severe doctors feared for a time it would need amputation. The sharp edge of the weapon could damage neither April’s vivaciousness, nor her compassion. “I wish that somebody could do something for him to help him. He should have some treatment. Who knows what leads a person to do a thing like this? If they don’t find him, he’s likely to do it again.”

…April Aaron has won the hearts of the people of San Francisco Bay area with her courage and good spirit in face of tragedy. Her room at St. Francis hospital was banked with flowers throughout her stay and attendants said they couldn’t recall when anyone received more cards and expressions of good wishes.

Modern psychology would probably dictate that April was simply repressing the horror of the attack, and that it would eventually catch up with her. But that is not the case. I saw her for myself some years later, when I was about 12 years old. She was not April Aaron anymore, as she had married. She had a daughter my age, and although I had read that account in “The Miracle of Forgiveness,” my parents did not tell me that she was the woman from the story until later. All I saw was a pretty mom who was fun and had an awesome family.

I believe that only the Atonement of Jesus Christ has that kind of power. The kind where you can take something so terrible, and give it away. Drown it in the depths of the sea, where you remember it no more. And then take what you have been given, and make something truly beautiful. It certainly makes you think about hurts and offenses that you have not let go… why is it that in our human nature, and maybe more especially our feminine human nature, we find a perverse satisfaction in holding petty grudges and in feeling sorry for ourselves? I think that maybe it is because forgiveness requires faith... a leap we are sometimes unwilling or afraid to take. There was a thought from the lesson that I love. It was that forgiveness is not an act of feelings, but one of will. Can we decide to forgive?

The One With the Challenge

I have been at a church youth conference all weekend with about 300 young men and women aged 14-18. I have had way too much sun and way too little sleep. But wow! Talk about some amazing kids. By the way, I’m not kidding about the sun. It is currently 91 degrees here at 5:00 p.m., and can’t lie… I am not a good warm-weather girl.
So I am a little tired. But I needed to do a Sunday post for you. I have been thinking a lot today about one particular thing: The Book of Mormon. There is much to love about the Book of Mormon. It has beautiful scripture stories. Since I was a child, my imagination has been captivated from the very beginning of the book, where a father receives a vision from God that his city is about to be destroyed, and he takes his young family and tents and provisions, and flees the city. As the story of the people that lived on the American continent centuries ago, the book is compelling and exciting.

More and more every day I realize, however, that every word in the book has one purpose only. That is to testify of Jesus Christ, and to celebrate and glorify his atoning sacrifice for each one of us. It is interesting how as I study the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I begin to realize that it is the one thing without which nothing else matters.

So…The Book of Mormon. If you are not Mormon, you have likely never read the book. Maybe you have never given it a second thought, or maybe you have heard that it is false…wicked, or controversial. But here is the amazing thing about the Book of Mormon: you don’t have to judge the book by what you have heard. It comes with a promise, that if you sincerely read the book with an open mind and real intent, then you can pray to know if it is true, and you will receive an answer!

Listen to these words from the introduction of this amazing book: “We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that tells the story of Alma, a missionary teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He explains in the most beautiful language what it means to be the people of Jesus Christ, and then he issues a powerful challenge: “Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?” I love that.

Now, may I take one step further back, and issue this challenge: What have you against reading the Book of Mormon? If it is true…and I tell you that it is…how can you stand not to know that for yourself? How can you afford not to know the truth of something that means happiness for you and for your family? You can get one online at this website. OR, I myself have several of these books sitting right here. You need only ask, and I will send one to you. A free Book of Mormon…from a genuine Mormon. Now that is a giveaway you shouldn’t miss.

Day Five: The Sunday One, With All the Jewels

I am not sure, as I am writing this, that I feel entirely equal to the task. But I am going to try, just the same. I actually shot a set of photos for today that are very much for fun…(for my PW art challenge) but I realized as I got ready to post them, that they were not the photos I wanted to post on a Sunday. Instead I wanted to share some different thoughts.

I am a pretty private person. I know…I have this blog. But let’s face it. I can share bits and pieces of things, here; I never have to share my soul…and only now and again do I actually do so. When I do, you know it. I had this conversation with a friend, recently. I told her that I was considering sharing an occasional spiritual experience on my blog. She said, “Maybe you do like other people do, and you have a private blog for those things, that you only invite family to.” I considered that, and we both came to the same conclusion. No. If I can brag about my kids, poke fun at my lack of housekeeping and show you where I lay my head at night, then why can’t I tell you how I really see things?

What I have been thinking about the most today is feeling the Spirit. An integral belief in my faith, is that each of us is entitled to the companionship of the Holy Ghost, who can do many things for us: comfort, guide us to know what is right and wrong, inspire, bring peace, testify of truth… and the things we have to do in order to exercise this gift, are a) to ask; and b) to live the commandments in order to be personally worthy of the gift. Those requirements are so small, compared to the gift that is offered.

I realized today that over the last several months, I have felt the Spirit in each of these capacities, numerous times…maybe more than I have in all the rest of my life. I think that part of the reason for that is that I have needed it more in the last few months. I have a great life, but there have been challenges, setbacks and disappointments just the same. Something that I love about the doctrine of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, is that when Jesus suffered to atone for each of us, he was not just atoning for our sins. He was also taking upon him each of our disappointments. Our illnesses. Betrayals and offences. All the many things that are not our fault…that are beyond our ability to control, but that can bring us low and make us despair. What that means to me, is that through that power of the Atonement, we can pray for comfort and answers, and receive them, through the Holy Ghost.

The way the Spirit feels to me, is a sensation of warmth and positive emotion that fills my heart. It is such a healing sensation, that as I look back over the last few months, I can barely remember the setbacks and disappointments, because they have been erased and replaced by the feeling of the Spirit. I love that Heavenly Father has a plan for me, and that when I begin to stray from it, I feel prompted to move back onto the right path. For me, that is especially important when I face choices between one good thing and another. It is easier, sometimes, to choose between good and evil…the proper choice is so obvious. But in order to follow God’s plan for me, I often have the more difficult choice of good and good. I have so often, over the past months, felt that I have been moved to do things for which I did not immediately see a purpose. But as the plan emerges, the purposes become clear.

The song that I finished a few weeks ago, called “This Is My Life,” incorporates many of these ideas. First of all, the idea that the Savior has atoned for our hurts and disappointments…and secondly that Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us. It is a basic principle of my religion that Heavenly Father knows each of us personally, as his own child, and that he has a plan and a mission for us, that is just our own.

There is a talk by Elder Richard G. Scott, an apostle in my church, in which he talks about this principle. He says, “Were you to know His entire plan, you would never ask for that which is contrary to it, even though your feelings tempt you to do so.” So often, we want what we want…but if we submit to the plan that Heavenly Father has for us, that is the way to true happiness. That was the main idea of the song…that if we could see just the tiniest glimpse of that plan, that we would see how beautiful it is! The imagery that came into my mind when I was writing it was something like being in a plane at night, looking down at a large city. If you have ever done that, you know how beautiful it is… I can picture it now…strands of glittering jewels laid out on a field of black velvet…each jewel representing another blessing that Heavenly Father has reserved just for you.

I wrote the song for my friend Janna, who was going through a particularly hurtful divorce that was no fault of her own. I don’t know if there is another kind of divorce, actually. But as I was writing that song, I felt an outpouring of the Spirit, helping me to know the things to write about, and to see the imagery that I would want to include. I am so grateful for that inspiration. I feel quite unworthy of it, but the memory of it still burns in my soul, so I wanted to share these thoughts with you. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss out on a single one of the jewels that has been laid out for me.

The One Where He Grew Up

This little song that I wrote, "Did You Know?" is so simple that kids seem to pick it up after only hearing it one time. That is part of what I love about it. The other thing I love is that it talks about Jesus, the grown man, not just the baby. I love the Savior and everything he has done for each of us. That is the true gift of Christmas. In the tradition of giving, I hope you enjoy this little Christmas gift from me to you. Vocals courtesy of Garry Pfile.

Did You Know?

Did you know when Jesus was a baby
That His mother laid him in the hay?
Did you know He slept among the oxen,
Safe and warm until the break of day?
Did you know He was the promised Savior,
Born to bring us love and show the way.

Did you know that Jesus was a shepherd,
That His lambs were people just like me?
Did you know that Jesus blessed the children?
Did you know He held them one by one?'
Did you know that Jesus came to save us?
Did you know that He was God's own son?

Did you know that Jesus healed the blind man?
Did you know He made the lame to walk?
Did you know He walked upon the water?
Did you know He calmed the troubled sea?
Did you know that Jesus loved the children?
That is how I know that He loves me...
That is how I know that He loves me.

The One With the Baby

There is something about the night the Savior was born... the Christmas story... that first captures my imagination, and then transports me to that place and time. I have had some very sacred moments as I have studied and prayed to create Christmas music. Heavenly Father sent a Savior to provide us with an Atonement. But he didn't send him fully grown, clothed in power and glory. Instead, he sent him as a tiny baby, in the most humble of circumstances. I love to think of angels and shepherds together in a crude stable to see the baby Jesus. In an earlier post today, I found some humor in childbirth. I am grateful that there is some to be found there. But then the baby arrives, and it is profoundly moving to feel that powerful love you didn't even know was possible. So there, in Bethlehem, was a convergence of earthly, primal love for a tiny newborn baby, dirty and coarse surroundings, blood and pain...alongside heavenly visitors, a bright new star directly overhead, and in the center, the perfect only begotten son of a loving Heavenly Father: the most precious gift He could send, not just for Mary and Joseph's generation, but for every generation that ever did, or ever will, live on the earth. What story could be more compelling? This is a song I wrote a couple of years ago called "Mary, May I Hold Your Little Baby?" sung by Karen Lake.



Per request, the words:

Mary, may I hold your little baby?
Let me rock him while you sleep awhile;
I will keep him safe from harm.
Wrap my poor cloak around your shoulders;
I know that it is worn and old, but at least it will be warm.

{chorus}
Rest, now; when you wake I will still be here
Kneeling at the manger bed,
Watching o’er your little baby dear.
Mary, I heard you sing to your little one.
Even angels and shepherds wept at your lullaby to God’s holy son.
Mary, may I hold your little baby?
I believe that when he fills my arms,
My heart will be full too.

I know that you must be so weary.
There was not an inn in Bethlehem
That would take you for the night.
I came to see the little Savior.
I felt the Spirit whispering to come and feel his light.

{chorus}

Prophets have waited for a new star
To shine up in the heavens
To guide them to their King.
Look how it shines upon the stable,
Bringing rich and poor to worship him;
See the wondrous gifts they bring.

{chorus}
Rest, now; when you wake I will still be here
Kneeling at the manger bed,
Watching o’er your little baby dear.
Mary, I heard you sing to your little one.
Even angels and shepherds wept at your lullaby to God’s holy son.
Mary, may I hold your little baby?
I believe that when he fills my arms,
My heart will be full too.