My bus friends

Everyday I take the bus to and from work. I generally take the same bus and there is a little group of people who are almost always on the same bus as well. Some of them I see everyday on my ride in, some on the ride home, and some I see on both rides. I have an odd variety of relationships with these people that I see everyday. I only know the names of a few of them and some of them I smile and nod to every morning, some of them exchange basic pleasantries with me from time to time and occasionally I spend the ride talking to one of them. In my head I think of them all as my bus friends.

One of my bus friends is almost always on the same bus home with me. I don't know his name, we have never really talked although if the bus is full we occasionally sit together. Despite the complete lack of interaction between us, he is one of my favorite bus friends. He is an Asian gentleman, probably in his mid-thirties. He get off the bus a few stops before I do and everyday when the weather is nice his wife, baby, and little boy are standing outside waiting for him to come home. Everyday it makes me smile to see his little boy come running towards his father when he gets off the bus and it makes me happy that this little family, who are in no way a part of my life, share a little of their happiness with me each evening as I come home from work.

Dignity for All

Today I joined several of my co-workers and attended a lecture by Dr. Robert Fuller called "Rankism: A social disorder Dignity: A universal human right." It was a fascinating presentation which I found very informative and thought provoking.

Dr. Fuller presented the idea that all people have a right to be treated with equal dignity and discussed ways we can be more self-aware of rankism both in ourselves and those around us. What particularly surprised me was that he used Darwinian evolution to support his claim. He explained that all of humanity is equal because we all came from the same core group of homo sapiens who knocked out all the competition and took over the world and that we have now developed beyond survival of the fittest to embrace equality. As interesting as I found this point of view I could not help by feel that his wonderful message would be much more powerful if he supported it with the eternal truth that we are all children of God and have uncompromisable potential and that we are not really in competition in this life.

For an hour an a half I listed to Dr. Fuller and he had great ideas and the world would be a better place for listening to him. Yet, to me, everything he said is wrapped up and even more powerfully expressed in this simple statement by C.S. Lewis:

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. "

All Grown Up

Last week my lap top died. It lived a long and happy life, getting me through my last year of undergrad, faithfully waiting for me while I was on my mission and getting me started in grad school.

So I reached a new benchmark in my growing-up process and went out and bought a new laptop all by myself. This is always something that my father helped me with in the past. In fact normally I just go, Dad talked to the sales guys and then he would tell me which one I should get. But this time I did research all by myself, went out and sounded reasonably intelligent to the sales person, was flirted with my the check-out dude, and brought home a laptop that I have been very happy with. I feel all nice and grown up.

Why I do what I do

I spent most of yesterday evening hanging out with a friend of mine who joined the Church about six months ago. He is planning on serving a mission and this last weekend while he was visiting his family for Mother's Day he told his parents about his plan to go on a mission. They didn't take it very well.

As we were talking things over I shared a few experience that I and my parents had had with family opposition to the Gospel. I don't know if that helped him at all, but sometimes it is nice to know that you aren't the only one going through something, or to hear that everything turned out okay in the end for someone else.

Then I started thinking about how difficult it is to explain my somewhat strange, Mormon lifestyle to people who have not experienced it themselves. At worst I get open opposition, at best, mild confusion. I don't think you can fully understand it without experiencing it. So sometimes we just have to accept that not everyone we love with understand or support the passions of our lives.

All of this made me think of this song from the classic Fiddler on the Roof. The exact situation is different but the sentiment is on that I understand

How can I hope to make you understand
Why I do what I do,
Why I must travel to a distant land,
Far from the home I love.
Once I was happily content to be
As I was, where I was,
Close to the people who are close to me,
Here in the home I love.
Who could see that a man could come
Who would change the shape of his dreams.
Helpless now I stand with him,
Watching older dreams grow dim.
Oh, what a melancholy choice this is,
Wanting home, wanting him,
Closing my heart to ev'ry hope but his,
Leaving the home I love,
There where my heart has settled long ago
I must go, I must go, I must go,
Who could imagine I'd be wand'ring so
Far from the home I love
Yet there with my love, I'm home.

Surprising Friends

So, when I got home from work yesterday I thought I was going to have a quite evening with a little homework and a little relaxation time. This is how my evening actually turned out.

An ex-boyfriend dropped by for a little while and we talked and laughed together. After he left I thought about how glad I was that even though dating hadn't worked out for us that we kept a wonderful friendship.

Next another friend of mine, who has been sick this past week, called to let me know he was feeling much better. Although I think he was mostly calling to make sure that I made no more attempts to force feed him chicken soup and orange juice, I appreciated him taking the time to let me know how he was doing.

Then I got a call from a member of my stake presidency wondering if I could house sit and look after their teenage daughter for a few weeks later this summer. He said he particularly wanted me to do it because he felt like he knew me and could trust me. Although I have had some interactions with him they have been pretty limited so it surprised me that he even remembered who I was, let alone wanted to trust me with his house and daughter while he was out of town.

Then my evening ended by getting a phone call from an old college roommate. We haven't lived together in year and hadn't talked at all for several months, but that didn't matter at all. We talked for hours about everything just like we always did.
All of this got me thinking about how surprising friendship can be. Often there are people that you never thought would be a big part of your life, and yet you remain close despite time, distance, and difficult situations.

Then there are other friends that quietly, naturally, fade out of your life, and you are never quite sure what happened. This process if beautifully and poignantly described in David Mallett's song "Inches and Miles"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K8UaJVqFm0

Do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave?

Once upon a time I had a very different idea of where my life was headed. I was finishing up my undergraduate degree and experiencing great academic success; I was the top of my class, I was presenting my papers at conferences and winning awards, I had been accepted as a fellow at the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. As I approached graduation my professors had great plans for me, most of which included getting a PhD from an prestigious university. Then I decided to go on a mission. One of my professors told me she was concerned that if I went on a mission instead of going straight to graduate school that I would lose my momentum and never achieve my full potential.

Since I got home from my mission I have taken a different path in life. Now I work at the library at Penn State and I studying to get my Masters degree in Library Science. People often ask me why I decided to become a librarian and sometimes I wonder myself - do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? Sometimes I am afraid that I am doing this because I was scared of the competitive word of academia and afraid of failure and that I took the path of least resistance instead.

Now that I am taking graduate courses I realized that I am doing it because I like it; in fact, I love it. In a way that is hard to describe I am passionate about the work of a librarian. I feel completely happy and fulfilled when I get to help someone find what they are looking for, break through a apparent dead end in their research, or teach them how to do it on their own. As wonderful as getting recognition for my own research was it is even better to help other people achieve their true potential. This may seem like romanticized view of what a librarian is, but that is why I do it. I do it because I like it and because I have been brave.

Becoming as a Child

Yesterday morning I went visiting teaching with a dear friend of mine. We had a wonderful visit and as we left, my friend mentioned that she knew of a wonderful toy store nearby. I had homework that I didn't really want to do and she had a talk that she didn't really want to prepare for, so it seemed like the perfect method of procrastination. We parked and walked to the toy store. My friend was right, it was a wonderful store full of wonderful toys. It didn't just have the same toys you see in the isles of every Wal-Mart and Target. It was full of unique toys and real craftsmanship. We spent over an hour walking around looking at things, playing with things, talking to the store owner, remembering our own childhoods, and talking over life together. It was a perfect morning.

We are often told that we need to be more child-like, but not childish. At first I thought that spending a morning in a toy store was more childish, but as I thought about it I realized that there was more to it then that. Sometime we need to set aside the pressures and stress of life and focus on the things the matter most: our relationships with other people and with God. The time that I spent in that store was more about friendship than it was about toys. We made new friends as we talked with the store owner and the experience deepened the relationship I had with my friend because we both escaped our stressful lives for a simple, happy moment of sisterhood. My homework still got done, her talk still got written, we met all of our responsibilities, but we also helped each other take a step in our process of becoming.