Summer is really with us. Early June and it must be eighty degrees in sheltered parts of the field where I have just been walking. The ground is baked dry, even though we had a little much-neded rain a couple of days ago. I was out and missed it, but I was told it was heavy, though very short-lived.
I had a marvellous trip to Europe France , then Italy , then Spain . France was to a book fair in St. Malo, an ancient and very beautiful city on the Atlantic coast. It is second in size only to the Paris Book Fair, and there seemed to be thousands of people there, all with a consuming love of books.
The vast pavilion where the publishers' tables were stretched for room after room after room, all crammed with books. Some of those books had cover photographs that were so beautiful that every one of them tempted me, but of course they were not only expensive, but too heavy to carry with me.
What most caught and held my attention was an exhibition of photographs by a very brilliant man. They were enlarged portraits of children from various deprived parts of the world Africa, Sudan , Brazil , other areas of South America, the Middle East and the Far East . The pain, the hope, the dignity in those faces was profoundly moving.
Can we ever be grateful enough for the privileges we have in the West of getting up every morning knowing there is food and water for us, almost certainly physical safety, and the opportunity to learn?
Real gratitude for a gift can only be expressed by using that gift for good, sharing it where possible, and acknowledging the giver. Lip service alone is empty. In fact, it is almost a mockery. I have been given a long life, good health since my teens, physical safety and the chance to learn. I believe I am fully accountable for what I have managed to do with all that, and must still do.
From France we drove through the mountains to Italy . The Alps were magnificent. We ran into an amazing electrical storm, thunder that seemed to roll almost continuously, and the most dramatic display of both fork lightning and sheet lightning that I have ever seen. We were surrounded by jagged peaks, the highest capped with snow, sulphurous clouds undershot with blue flashes, dagger-like thrusts and flaring curtains of light. It could have been the end of the world.
Of course it was nothing of the kind just a display of the powers of creation and destruction putting on a light show.
Gratitude for Music
We got to Milan the following afternoon. Simon turned straight around and drove back home. I met my friends in Milan , joined in signing, then was driven to Piacenza, where the Blues Festival was held. There was quite a lot of literary emphasis also, or I could hardly have justified being there.
What delightful people! It is one of life's best adventures to meet those with whom you think you have nothing at all in common, and discover that you have all the things that really matter. I was surprised to find I shared many values with the blues players and singers, and talking about such things was both easy and enjoyable.
That is odd only because I like classical music. I was brought up with it from as far back as I can remember. In fact I am told that when my mother was expecting me she used to lie on the floor in the dark and listen to Beethoven in particular. My father used to play pieces of Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin on the piano. He was not taught much, but he had an excellent touch again, so I am told. I am no judge, and very biased in his favour. Common sense tells me now that he wasn't actually perfect well not in everything! But to me he was!
He also loved the operas of Verdi, and some of Wagner. I have a way to go to appreciate much of Wagner, but I love Verdi and have I believe, all of his works, including such things as Stiffelio, Il Pirata, the Requiem Mass and the string quartets. Also, naturally, I have all Puccini, and much Bellini, Boito and so on. So when I go to a city near Milan , it takes a stretch of my imagination and discipline to listen to the blues and enjoy the words and the passion and emotion, and the deep honesty I heard within them.
This was a happy discovery for me. It will never take the place of opera, but it is an addition to my world, and a wider understanding of some very good people.
I also met some writers I liked very much. One at least I knew before from several earlier visits to Italy, although he is in fact Texan. Another I had never met before, but she was intelligent, charming, and full of all the best qualities in life.
Spain also was superb. I had never particularly thought of Spain as a country marked by super-efficiency, but in everything I experienced, it was. The Spanish airline, Iberia , took off on time to the minute, and landed on time. Luggage came off quickly, and in one piece.
The person there to meet me telephoned my mobile before I got to the exit gate, so I did not have to wonder if she would be there. The taxi was ready and waiting, and the hotel was perfect! All the other arrangements went equally smoothly, and my translator was brilliant. And what an interesting and remarkable woman!
Altogether I had a marvellous trip.
Gratitude for the Gospel
One point stands out especially. When anyone asks me why I am LDS (as opposed to any other Christian religion), I usually ask them how serious an answer they would like. If they say that they want a full answer, then I tell them about the Plan of Salvation.
The reason I do not tell them if they are asking idly, is that it is too precious to set out before those who may mock it. It is also a bad thing, I think, to let them believe they have heard and understood, when really they haven't. It might block their minds to listening later when they are more receptive, because they think they already know, and will dismiss it.
This man wanted to know, so I told him all the things that matter most to me the fact that every human being, without exception, is a child of God, with the potential one day in eternity to become like Him, and has now the chance now to begin that great process. There is no original sin of which we are all guilty. Guilt requires knowledge, understanding of better and worse, and the opportunity to choose between at least two options, possibly more.
The taking upon us of mortal life was not a disaster which God failed to foresee, it was the beginning of the greatest adventure in all human history. It is a huge risk, and therefore we cannot be ordered to do it, but we can, and do choose to.
I explained Christ's part in the plan, His endurance of Gethsemane and His death on the cross to provide a way for us to overcome our mistakes, and our otherwise inevitable physical death.
I added a few other things as well, about agency, faith, and so on.
At the very end of the conversation, which must have been at least an hour long, he said very seriously, that I was the happiest person he had ever interviewed. I was too surprised and pleased to try to explain that the joy he felt in me was the Gospel the Good News not really unique to me at all. But then he would know that when he thought about it later, because he had met other members of the Church; indeed he had visited Salt Lake City.
Gratitude for the Knowledge that God Cares
My thought now is how often do I project a deep joy so that others see that I know something wonderful? It should be most of the time, and I know very well that it isn't. But there can hardly be a better missionary tool than to have within oneself the calm knowledge that whatever pain or loss there is now, whatever loneliness, whatever fault or sense of not being sure where we are going, or perhaps with whom, with faith and hope and the love of God and man within us, everything good is possible.
No one can be so lost that God cannot find them, if only they want to be found.
Of course things hurt, sometimes almost unbearably. There is failure. There is grief and sometimes guilt. But there is also hope, forgiveness, and at the end of this life, there is resurrection. That which is lost can be restored. What is repented of can be forgiven, and even washed away so that it no longer exists.
There is no end to the growth, the learning, the creating and the love ahead. We cannot see how it could all be done, but then since we have to do only our part of it, not God's, our lack of understanding doesn't matter, only our lack of faith would.
Yes, there will be sadness and pain at times, but underneath it, in the quiet moments when the best of what we know, or believe, can break through, there should always be a knowledge of joy. That is what we are created for. Man is that he might have joy.
I certainly don't project that all the time. But I aim to do it more than I do now, and more again in the future. I don't wish ever to make light of anyone's distress. That would be almost beyond forgiving, and I know better.
Many of the very best people who ever lived have suffered appallingly. Abinadi was burned alive. John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded. Joseph Smith suffered persecution, loss of those he loved, and an early death. Women have been tortured and broken, have lost child after child. Christ Himself was persecuted, beaten and crucified.
It is through adversity that we learn strength, humility, and compassion for others. But we knew this when we accepted to come here. We knew it would not be easy, but we knew it would be worth it!
Let us never forget that. We knew it would be worth it! We had no doubt.
Gratitude for Nature
This evening the weather is glorious. There is a slight breeze off the sea, just enough to stop it being suffocating. There is silence except for the birdsong, the occasional drowsy hum of bees, and now and again the stirring of wind in the grass. The gorse blossom is too gold to look at, it dazzles the eyes, and it smells like honey and wine.
The may is white like snow upon the hedges and trees. The fields where the grass is less deep are so thickly sheeted with buttercups, that there is no place to put your feet without treading on them. The streamers of yellow laburnum flowers festoon the trees as if they are hung for some celebration. The wild rhododendrons are purple and amethyst with the occasional garden one gone natural in pink or crimson.
In my garden the lupins are like an army marching with tall spears for banners. The huge oriental poppies are scarlet and crimson, the peach coloured ones will come later. They look like rather tipsy ladies, dancing with their skirts all over the place. And here and there, there are great globes of deep purple allium, eight or more inches across.
As I write this, the sun is setting over the sea, and if it stays clear, as it did yesterday evening, and the one before that, and before that, then all the west will be fire and gold and apricot above the hills, and spilling over the sea.
It is nearly the longest day when it will barely get dark at all as far north as this.
Yes today especially, it is infinitely worth it, and always will be, in the end.
