I'm re-reading this week . . . delving into the books that are old friends. Sometimes I need to read things I've underlined because the direction guides my thoughts like a mother holding a child's hand.
Today I came across one of my favorite paragraphs by Anne Morrow Lindbergh who writes "I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints - to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when he said 'May the outward and the inward man be at one'. I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God. . ."

Last night I played for a choral arts gig. We performed "Te Dium", a vocal work written by Arvo Part in 1990. The piece is an act of thanksgiving for Czechoslovakian freedom so long denied; the Gregorian melodies of the hymn with it's joyful ascending ductus seem to overcome all the turbulence accompanying revolutions and resound in joy and freedom. Something about opening the door to Libby Gardner at the University of Utah sucked me into a time when rehearsals until 10 pm were normal, when books and laptops and lessons were what filled up my whole world. Instead, I had just come from giving the baby a bottle, PJ's, bath time, and stories. I wasn't expecting the music to demand my attention like it did. On the first reading the harmony and layers of plainsong seemed to curl up inside my bosom and glow, warm and precious until my whole being was well. The experience silenced the noise inside my head and left me with a quiet peace, a moment of clarity that brought surprise at where I stood. . . In a moment of stillness I recognized the turning of pages in the book of life. I became slightly sentimental, slightly satisfied . . . . very aware.

A friend recently reminded me that in the original greek text the scripture found in Matthew 5:14 "Be Ye Therefore Perfect", the word "perfect" means not perfection like we 'A Type' Mormon's know it as, but "complete, finished, fully developed", or, in other words, "whole".

Anne Morrow Lindbergh continues, "With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel."

And again, in my moment of clarity I remembered that the only way to achieve true 'wholeness', as God commanded, is through the constant application of Christ's Atonement. The chaotic, hectic strains that flow through life will not diminish. But in giving Him our imperfections, our gaps are filled and we find ourselves in a moment of okayness, a moment, if you will, of wholeness.

In 1975 Arthur Henry King wrote an article in the Ensign titled "Atonement: The Only Wholeness" in which he states: "But what of the need for opposition in all things, and what of eternal progression? In this earthly life we may feel wholeness and oneness, this atonement, fleetingly before the color of the experience changes and the harmony is gone to come again and then to go again. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. (1 Cor. 13:9–10.) If we accept and live the gospel, we shall be made whole, we shall be glorified, we shall be that much further on in our eternal progression. What oppositions we shall then meet, what conditions for creation we shall then obtain, what new wholes we may rise to has not been revealed to us, and if it were we would not understand. But for the time being, if we have not a full understanding of divine or human love, we can be given the experience of it. We may have the supreme experience of it in contemplating the atonement and in trying to live to be worthy of the love that it shows to us. Praise be to the Father and the Son that they are at one and that we may be at one with them: “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” (John 17:21.)

Re-reading this week helped me re-learn that when you make time in a busy life for the simple prayers and simple scripture, the chaos pauses, the noise is silenced, and the storms of life are calmed, if only just for a moment. It's a hidden door I all too often forget is there.