A Lamp Trimmed and Burning (D&C 33:17)

 As I was reading and pondering Doctrine and Covenants 33, this question came into my mind: If God is the source of the light that “lights every man that cometh into the world,” (D&C 93:2) and we are the vessels of that light, and our obedience to God is the oil in our lamps, added drop by drop as we pray study, attend, repent and forgive, and partake of the sacrament in remembrance of the atonement, then what does the wick in the lamp represent and how do we keep it trimmed and burning?

President Kimball, 12^th president of the church said: “In our lives the oil of preparedness is accumulated drop by drop in righteous living. Attendance at sacrament meetings adds oil to our lamps, drop by drop over the years. Fasting, family prayer, home teaching, control of bodily appetites, preaching the gospel, studying the scriptures—each act of dedication and obedience is a drop added to our store. Deeds of kindness, payment of offerings and tithes, chaste thoughts and actions, marriage in the covenant for eternity—these, too, contribute importantly to the oil with which we can at midnight refuel our exhausted lamps.” (Faith Precedes the Miracle, p. 253-257) 

In a lamp, if the wick is too short, or dry, or does not reach into the oil at all, then there will be no light in the lamp. The wick itself would only burn a short time. The oil itself does not even burn without a wick. Both are important for the proper functioning of the lamp.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) Clearly we have a mandate to ‘shine’, using the oil in our lamps. The light of Christ, (or truth) found within each of us, is sufficient to start the flame burning, but unless our wick is used properly and wisely, we may find ourselves without a light that is capable of shining independently in a darkened world.

President Kimball had as one of his mottoes: “Lengthen your stride and quicken your pace.” Perhaps we can rephrase this to say: Lengthen your wick to quicken your lamp!

I believe that the wick could represent our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. To lengthen our faith in Him would be to allow our faith to stretch to every part of our lives, to lengthen our obedience to the fine points of the law as well as the great ones. It could also represent the principle: “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2: 14-26) Putting our heart, our faith and our love into every act that we perform gives those actions the power to lift us to higher living, like a wick that reaches into the oil and draws it upward to provide continuous fuel for the flame. Without faith, our works are dead and have no power, and are not “counted to us for righteousness.” (Moroni 7: 6-12) Thus, our works may be many, but unless they are fired by the Spirit of Truth, drawn to us through our faith, they may be worth little or nothing.

We can refrain from criticism, lengthen our faith and pray to the Lord for answers, rather than becoming bitter, shortened or hard. We can dig deeper, learn more, ask more. We can lengthen our faith by practicing sustained moments of love, gratitude, joy and hope. We can take time to ponder, lengthening our faith in the Gift of the Holy Ghost and his power to speak to us. 

Playing beautiful music, giving thanks for our blessings, pondering the purpose of our lives, and writing down words of hope, inspiration, and understanding can lengthen, strengthen and build our faith so that it will reach into the oil of our lives, allowing our light to shine.

We can lengthen our wicks of faith too by taking stock of our lives, assessing our progress, reviewing our short and long-term goals, and pondering with faith our needs, desires and possibilities.

If faith is the substance of things hoped for, then ought we not to cultivate our ability to find more of that substance in our lives?

Without the wick of faith, the oil of our lamps cannot be made useful. In the same way, though we may attend meetings, read, pray, fast, and in all other ways LOOK like we are doing all the right things, unless our works are lit with the fire of God, through our faith in Christ, who quickens us, we will be as a lamp with no wick, unable to light the house in which it stands. 

The Lord through Joseph Smith said: “And the Book of Mormon and the holy scriptures are given of me for your instruction; and the power of my Spirit quickeneth all things. Wherefore, be faithful, praying always, having your lamps trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom.” (D&C 33:16-17) 

Trimming a lamp is about the wick. The wick must be kept trimmed in order for it to burn effectively. If corrosion is allowed to build up, the oil cannot flow smoothly and the fire will be less effective. If we liken the wick to our Faith, then trimming our wick might be like repenting of anything in our lives that is unworthy. Daily faithful scripture study and prayer helps us to keep our lamps “trimmed and burning”. 

The Lord said that his “soul delighteth in the song of the heart”, and that “the song of the righteous is a prayer” unto him. (D&C 25: 12) Singing with the voice alone, without engaging the heart in righteous worship cannot qualify for the promised blessing found in this beautiful scripture. In the same way, the oil in our lamps can be full of outward performances, doing all the right things, and being in all the right places, however, the Lord looks on the heart. (Samuel 16:7) If we have a lamp full of oil, but our wick is short, dry, hard and cold, in other words, if we are doing our works without faith, without a full heart, or without the love of God and our fellow beings, then we may need to repent and ask God to soften our hearts that we might be healed, (3 Nephi 9:13) or that we might be quickened, or made alive by the power of his spirit unto the salvation of our souls.

May we have oil in our lamps, in other words, the works of righteousness; and may we have wicks that are long enough to reach into the oil of truth, in other words, faith sufficient to make our works alive; and may our lamps be trimmed and burning with the light of Christ.

The Quickest Way to Win (The Real Secret)

Today.  Now.  That's all there is.  That's the real secret.  Do NOW the thing that you are talking about, thinking about, wishing about.   Yes, you've probably heard this before, maybe in some article about motivation or meditation.  But today, I'd like to share another perspective on this timeless concept. 

The real secret to winning, success, happiness and everything that goes with it, is one simple thing that is all too easy to overlook.  We will spend hours, days, even years studying about HOW to break through our blocks, HOW to overcome challenges, HOW to live a better life, when the answer is staring us in the face. 

I've often found myself in a state of confusion and sadness because of what has HAPPENED to me.  I look at it, analyze it, wonder about it, talk about it and try to figure it out.  I do that so that I can move forward into now.  But what if there were an easier, faster way to do that?

I recently saw a film that showed me an image that was difficult to forget.  It kept coming into my mind and causing me distress.  My first reaction was to try to avoid the thought, get away from it, or replace it with something else.  However, with each attempt, the image seemed to grow in intensity and even seemed to be mocking my efforts.  In the middle of this frustrating experience, a thought occurred to me:  What if I went INTO the image instead of trying to GET AWAY from it.

At first I thought that it might backfire and cause more trauma and pain.  The more I thought about it though, the more it made sense.  So, I went into it.  I looked the image square in the face, not turning away, not flinching or squinting.  And there it was!  The truth about the situation.  It was not what I had thought!  I had IMAGINED a scenario that was NOT REAL!  Once I knew that, the image lost it's control, I lost my fear of it, and I was able to quickly and easily move forward.

Ultimately, life is about now and only now.  If you want success, do something NOW that takes you one step further in that direction.  That is the secret.  However, if you find yourself still stuck in the sadness, fear, pain or ignorance of the past, then turn around, and stare that trouble squarely in the face.  Look at it until you see the truth.  When you see the truth about the past, you will be free to live NOW! 

The Struggle

In life, we have setbacks, challenges, trials or whatever you want to call them.  They are the rocks in our path, the handicaps that slow us down, the thorns that hurt our hands.  However you label them, they have always been blamed for being the 'bad' part of life.  So, this morning, while I was just thinking about some of the recent events of my life, I saw something I did not expect.  I saw myself struggling to reach a goal, working hard, sacrificing, and striving.  Then I saw myself during that process sometimes weighed down with discouragement, wondering whether or not I would succeed.  So far, all of this probably sounds familiar, like something most of us have been through time and again.  Well, then I saw the unexpected thing.  I saw myself achieving goals, accomplishing some of the things I had set out to do and finding great joy in it.  Then I saw in my mind's eye, others who had not had to struggle so much, accomplishing the same tasks and finding little or no joy in it for themselves.

Now this may not seem like a breakthrough in atomic physics, but to me, it marked a major shift in my thinking.  I realized in that moment that it was precisely because of having to overcome my difficulties that my joy was so great upon accomplishment.  Without them, I would be like the other people I knew who had done the same thing but had simply expected it, or taken it for granted.

Take for example someone I know who learned to
play the piano. It came easily and quickly to her.  Reading notes, playing scales and learning songs was as easy as walking or talking for her.  When people said that she had a gift, she merely shrugged her shoulders and kept on playing, for fun.  And that's all it ever was for her: fun.  And there was no reason it should be anything else, right?  Now, take another girl who, from birth was given the prognosis that she would not live to be one year old.  Her mother took care of her and she did live.  Then the mother was told that the girl would be a vegetable, severely mentally and physically handicapped.  The child still grew, and learned not only to walk and talk, but to communicate freely.  The mother, not satisfied with this progress, at the child's request, began to teach the girl to play the piano.  The ordinary methods were too complicated for the girl, so the mother invented a new system of notes that the girl could understand and read.  When I first met this severely mentally and physically handicapped girl, she played "You Light Up My Life" on the piano, with no help from her mother.  Then, not only the mother and child, but all of us in that room were filled with joy and wonder in that moment, at the miracle of overcoming obstacles.

What I'm getting at is that most of the time, I have thought of setbacks as some sort of 'bad karma' in my life and have felt a little bit sorry for myself.  (OK, a LOT sorry sometimes).  But I see now that the obstacles were actually the power behind the greatest joys in my life.  So, for example, my singing voice, that was labeled 'damaged', caused me the greatest joy when I was able to perform an extremely difficult piece for an audition and someone said that they enjoyed it. 

I began to see my whole life differently.  No longer did I feel that life had dealt me some bad cards, but that when I had tough situations I realized that they could be turned into opportunities for greater joy, and that's worth celebrating right now!

People are Amazing!

Every day is something new!  I love my life.  Really.  Although I've had ups and downs, as have all of us, I still feel that life is basically good, happy and worth living.  Why would I want to begin a post with a declaration of the goodness of life?  Well, I suppose it has come from my most recent experiences with people.  I work in a business of health and wellness.  I see people every day who have serious challenges in their lives.  As I meet with people who are struggling just to survive each day I find myself amazed at human resilience.  We really are amazing creatures!  I've seen people who have been through indescribable trauma, come out on the other side and still keep helping their neighbor who seems worse off than they are.  Often I just shake my head and wonder how we do it!  I've heard people all my life say that life was never meant to be easy, but was it really meant to be this tough?  My hat is off to all those people who have gone through and are going through @#%!  You are amazing. And my hope is that life will return to you all the good things that you have wished for in your life.  

Not Hitting the Tree

I can still remember the day I learned to ride a bicycle. I was rather old for the task, somewhere in my tenth year, but the bike was a large one, and the only one in our family at the time; plus I had five older siblings who were riding it before me. When I finally got my chance and a teacher, (my oldest brother consented to teach me), I climbed aboard the vehicle and began my adventure. 

Slowly at first, then peddling faster and faster, with my brother beside me holding me upright, I began to pick up speed and find my balance. Before I knew it, he had let go and I was riding on my own. “Just like that!” I thought. It seemed easier than I had expected. A block away, I deftly turned a corner, confident in my new-found skill, feeling the wind blow through my hair and the exhilaration of speed and success. 

The little one-horse town I grew up in, was so small that we had no paved roads. There were perhaps four full blocks in the town with somewhere between one and six houses in each block. We had a post office, a bar, a gas station with a mechanic, the elevators, a fire station, a church and a school. In other years there had also been a restaurant and grocery store but these had both been abandoned over the years as people had moved away. However, in my childhood there was one landmark in that little town which stood out above all the rest. It was the Money Tree. It was a Cottonwood tree as tall as a three story house, and nearly as broad, with leaves the size of a sheet of paper and when the wind blew, as it seemed to do all the time in North Dakota, the leaves made a wonderful, powerful sound that filled the air. 

As I turned the corner, heading down hill with my bike, proud of my new skill and ability, I was thinking of the money tree. It's sound was filling the air and suddenly I realized, it's trunk was also filling the road! Apparently, when the town was built, the tree had been right where the road needed to be, but rather than cut it down, which in those days would have been more trouble than a little town would want to deal with, they simply put the road around it—on both sides—and on a corner with only one way to turn. In other words, the tree ran down the middle of the road and I was heading right for it, down hill at ever-increasing speeds.

Even at that age, my mind was making all sorts of physics calculations about hitting tree trunks at high speeds, hitting gravel at high speeds, careening off the road at high speeds, etc. Panic filled my mind with these brief but harrowing thoughts and I instinctively cried out for help. I knew that somehow I needed to stop, but my brother had failed to instruct me in the finer points of this exercise and I was stranded on the bicycle, going down hill, headed straight for a very large tree on a gravelly corner with nowhere to go but into the tree, off the road and into the railroad tracks, or around the slippery gravel road on a sharp corner. My brief experience had taught me that I was simply not qualified to do any of these things without facing severe injury, at least! 

When I called for help to stop the fast-moving death machine I was riding, my brother had called out, “Step on the brakes!” I'm sure he thought this would be sufficient instruction in my predicament, however, he had failed to teach me where the brakes resided and how to 'step' on them. To save time, I simply yelled, “How?” To which he quickly responded, as he ran down the hill after me, “Pedal backwards!” This counter intuitive instruction was not questioned by my child-like mind. I simply did what he said which caused me to veer sharply to one side and I slid sideways to the ground. The disaster averted, (though I was somewhat bruised and scratched), I got up, smiling and grateful for another chance to live and perhaps ride the bike again. 

 

Often, in my life today, I find myself going down a hill, faster than I would like, headed for a tree that I cannot seem to avoid. Often I call out for help. Still more often, a response comes that seems counter intuitive, like for instance, “Love your enemy”. I do it anyway. And today, after being saved from one disaster after another, I'm again grateful for one more day to live and ride a bike.

The Art of Making Dinner

On any given day there is one thing I do which is at once the most challenging and the most rewarding. It is the thing that makes motherhood difficult for some and impossible for others. It taxes the inner strength of anyone who confronts this challenge and it gives back more than ample payment for the effort. It is so frightening to some people that they would rather suffer almost any inconvenience instead of confronting it. I'm talking about the monster (I mean the art) of making dinner.

On the surface, making dinner doesn't sound like much, but to anyone who has had to do it on anything like a regular basis, it can present an almost insurmountable obstacle to peace and happiness. In my experience, the routine goes something like this: Four o'clock rolls around and my stomach starts telling me it's time to get something going. I look around for ingredients and find that there is little or nothing of use to me. I have some basic things but nothing special. I start thinking of all the things we have had that week and what we might have, that won't sound like 'the same old thing'. Suddenly, five o'clock arrives and I still don't have a plan. No new ingredients have shown up, the clock seems to be ticking loudly now and panic sets in. “What are we going to have for dinner?” I shout to no one in particular (for some reason, saying this loudly makes me feel marginally better). Then I start to get serious. I know that at least six people are going to show up in my kitchen in the next half hour and wonder what I am making that might possibly satisfy the hunger that has been building in them over the entire afternoon of work or play. At this point, I frantically rack my brain for ideas, wondering how I'm going to pull a rabbit out of my hat this time. I try to sit calmly in a chair, cook book in hand, and meditate on the myriad possibilities. Some of us like one thing, some like another; some will eat certain greens, other won't touch them; some like it hot, some like it cold; but none of them like it in the pot nine days old. Panic turns to desperation when I start reciting nursery rhymes! My next impulse is to curl up into fetal position and cry like a baby. Then, in a moment of clarity and as if by magic, an idea drops out of the air. The room seems to light up as I realize that this idea will save the day since I happen to have all the ingredients I need. It will also satisfy even the picky eaters and it doesn't take all night to make! Then, I make dinner (whew!).

If this sounds familiar to you, you know what I mean when I say that cooking dinner is perhaps the hardest part of parenthood. After about ten years of this I began to wonder why this should be and have finally come to the conclusion that it is because making dinner is (or should be) an act of creativity. This sounds simple enough, but understand, we live in a world where creativity is dying all around us. I have lamented for a long time that in the movie industry (or any industry) it is extremely rare to see an original creative idea. This is the age of the re-make. For instance, how many Star Trek movies are they going to make, anyway? In a world of instant food, instant gratification, instant music, instant entertainment, instant technology and even instant relationships, is it any wonder that the act of creativity, which requires thought, effort, time and a degree of inspiration, is falling by the wayside?

Creativity rewards the diligent with the fruits of satisfaction with one's self and contentment with life; or you might say, self-esteem and happiness. Nothing is free. You get what you pay for. If you want internal, mental, emotional rewards you have to invest internal, mental and emotional energy. Today it has become all too easy to buy everything. So, instead of making dinner, we buy pre-packaged, processed, prepared foods: no thought, effort or creativity required. It sounds easy, but the catch is, if you put nothing in, you get nothing out. There are no emotional rewards for a quick fix. When I do dinner or art or life with thought, diligence and creativity I am amply rewarded for my effort. When I don't, there is no amount of aspirin that can make up for how bad I feel.

Where Is Love?

In that wonderful musical, Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein, Tevye, in what proves to be a life-altering moment, asks of his wife, “Do you love me?” To which she replies with a list of the many things she has done for him and with him over the twenty-five years of their marriage. Finally, after listing all of those things she has done, she concludes that yes, she supposes that she does indeed love him, since she can think of nothing else it could be.

A few years ago, I would have said that people's use of the word love was becoming more widespread, and that people were using it over-much and making light of it; using it to describe anything and everything remotely connected with any kind of human relationship or attraction. Now, I think, I would have to say that there seems to be a relative decline in the use of that word. But whatever the popular usage, it is clear that as living creatures in a living world, we know less of love than we do of, say, gasoline prices or world events.

Having been both a child and a parent, I have seen human relationships from many angles and have used and seen the word 'love' used in numerous settings from the profane to the profound. I've seen it thrown at people in fits of anger, seen it gently fall from the lips of newlyweds, watched it caress the brow of a tiny child and been held by it in the heart of another. The word seems to mean so many different things in so many different situations that to capture it in one succinct definition becomes a nearly impossible task.

Most people, I believe, would define love as something you 'show' to someone. Like Tevye's wife who listed the cooking, cleaning and bearing children which she had performed in behalf of her husband. This, to her, was the meaning of love. In other words, she showed her love by the things she did. I have been in many church classrooms where we were asked how we could 'show' our love, and the answers always tended in the same direction as Tevye's wife: helping, kind words, thoughtful deeds, etc. This, I suppose, is the evidence we might present in order to prove that we love someone. Unfortunately, it is only circumstantial evidence and not always conclusive.

There are some who, in an attempt to 'prove' their love, offer such deeds as proof and then, demand acknowledgment and reciprocation. As if to say, “Look what I have done for you because I love you. Now, I deserve something in return.” Parents sometimes treat their children in this way, expecting the same kind of 'love' they have been giving.

In the well-known scriptural definition of Love, it describes more of what love is not, than of what it is, as in: not envious, not puffed up, not seeking her own, not easily provoked. Thus I have asked myself: Is love the good deeds we do, or the evil ones we do not do, or is it something else entirely? Love certainly has degrees of intensity and strength, but for my understanding, I wished to know the highest and best meaning, having already seen much of what I would consider the least and lowest forms of what has been or might be called love.

In the words of Oliver from the musical of the same name by Lionel Bart, based on the book, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, “Where is love?” Many times I have asked myself this question and as many times, have come to the conclusions above.

Then, unexpectedly, love came, a gift, unannounced, and smiled upon me, embraced me from the inside out, healed my wounded soul and lifted me up. Without words, I learned instantly that Love is real, but not really the things we do. Love is alive, but we must allow it and believe it in order to feel it. Love sings, but not with the voice. Love heals, but more with the heart than with the hands. And, shining through the universe from the brightest, star to the tiniest particle of microscopic matter is Love: iridescent, fine, endless, true, astonishingly beautiful and magnificent.