Please, Come Back (Or At Least Talk To Me About it).

I've read six of the seven Harry Potter Books to my children, and we just started in on the seventh. Just after the dedication of the seventh is a quote from William Penn that I felt encapsulated so deeply who and I what I care about as a person. 

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they se face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

At the core of who I am as a person and the things I care about is friendship. There are other things, too, of course, but for me, friendship is it. It's the key. It's what makes everything worth doing. I might prefer to work alone, but that's only because when I'm with friends I have no desire to get things done at all. It takes a truly special friend to keep me focused on work when we're together. 

The reason this quote came up again is becuase Natalie and I have been doing the mature responsible adult things and doing some estate planning which has included a potential funeral program. Woo! Such fun. I put this quote at the bottom of one page because it so embodies what I think and care about. Death is separation, not end. I say that knowing how hard it is to lose people, and how much I'm sure everyone I know will be devestated beyond belief at my own passing in 50 or more years. But the other quote I put on a page comes from the scriptures, it says this: 

When the Savior shall appear we shall see him as he is. We shall see that he is a man like ourselves. And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.

This same sociality, to me, has always meant friends. The capstone, one of the last canonical entries in recorded scripture is that Heaven is being with friends. I believe greatly in the endless and eternal wisdom and mercy of God, our Heavenly Father. I believe that irreversible damange I've caused can be healed. I believe sins and mistakes can be washed away. I believe that the sickness and suffering of so many of life's ills can be healed, repaired, forgiven, or overcome. That doesn't pretend like bad choices never happened, but we can be made whole from them. Heaven is going to be the great reuniting of loved ones, mending of fences, water under bridges, forgivness, rejoicing, and wonderful, joyfully fulfilled society. In a word, it is Atonement through the mediator of the new and ever lasting Covenant, Jehovah. Jesus Christ. I believe in him as I believe in little else. 

However, until that joyous day comes, I hope you'll hear me out on a request. Please, if you've stepped away from the Church of Jesus Christ, come back. If you've never been formally introduced to it, let me talk to you about my faith (with or without missionaries). Or at least think about it, and talk to me about it. 

My high school and college years in Utah were blessed with smart, wonderful, insightful and kind friends. They put up with me inspite of my... me. Yes, I just gestured to all of me. I shared experiences of faith, sacred temple trips, and in some cases life changing conversations, sacred experiences, testimony and so many more things during that time. In the intervening years, society has made many good and appropriate changes, and in some ways has lashed out at things like "organized religion" or even Christ and his church. 

And, to be clear, I get it. 

I have discomfort with some elements of church history. I have ambivilance (see my long facebook post on the subject) about LGBT relationships and issues related to church doctrine, because I have so many dearly beloved friends, family and students in this camp. I have made serious mistakes and commited painful sins in my life and I can't imagine how awkward it could have been to have lesser men to repnt with and to than the ones I did. I've been fortunate enough to not be exposed to a wide variety of ills in my youth that have made it easier for me to not feel guilt or shame related to the commandments. I've also been free from major trauma from members of my family, ward, and so forth. I've been lucky to have (on paper) a pretty textbook LDS life that includes a mission, temple marriage, healthy children, formal education (at BYU no less), and so forth. I haven't faced the most brutal path to church activity. I get that there are many many many valid reasons why people distance themselves from the church. Sometimes it's culturally or politlcally or societal awkward. Sometimes it is lonely. Sometimes it is difficult. Sometimes, people do the whole discipleship thing wrong. 

But knowing all of that, I want to extend an invitation to you. Talk to me. Let me hear what you have to say about why you're gone. Let me see if there a way I can convince you to come back. Consider facing whatever seemingly insurmountable challenges face you on your path to life in the restored church. Because, frankly, we need you. 

I went through my facebook friends making this post. To the best of my knowledge, no less than 100 of you would describe yourself as some version of post-mormon, and many more might never have understood my faith very well at all. That's a lot. If I didn't think I was being preachy, I'd share initials, or send this personally (which I might anyway), or tag people. Becuase I'm in a calling right now where we are desperate for adults who are contributors. Not textbook perfect people. Not tattoo and piercing free puritans. Not ideal families. Not 1970s conservatives. Just you. Just how you are. My calling has led me to see over and over how important it is to have good people who show up and serve. Good people who have empathy for challenges. Good people who have stepped away for totally valid reasons and can share things that I cannot about what it looks like to come back. Good people who make sacrifices of good things in pursuit of that greatest thing.

Please come back. Please talk to me about what keeps you away. Let me at least understand you better. Let me hear that you read this and thought about it, and know that even if the answer is, "thanks for the invite, but no" know that I love you. 

Last thing. There's a parable Jesus shares about a wedding feast and inviting poeple to come. (Great article on it here much better written than what I'm saying). It's in Matthew 22, and when the King sends out invites for the wedding feast, many make light of it, ignore it, or return to things that seem to be of greater consequence in the moment. I don't think that over the pulpit in conference this weekend, we're going to hear that Christ is coming next week, but I want to remind you, now and always, that I'm inviting you, and I love you. To me, heaven won't be heaven and my joy will not be full without the involvement of all people I love. I hope God in his mercy invites me and spares me, but I want to do all I can to bring and invite you too. 

Natalie

Do you think there should be a law requiring people to wear helmets while sledding?

This question may have been the most important one that was ever asked of me. I was a senior in high school taking a speech and debate class on the merits of wanting to take a relatively easy class with my friends. In a one-minute spar debate, I had to defend the position of those who were not required to wear helmets. I spent the entire minute trying to distract my much younger (she was a freshman) opponent by flirting with her and talking to her. She was determined and focused. She won the debate handily, not only because she was more skilled (and determined to win) but because she was beloved by the class.

I didn't know at that time that she would eventually be my future wife, but it was absolutely an omen of things to come. In our seven years of marriage, (which probably extends to 11 years of friendship as she wrote me on my mission and was my friend even before that) I have had tons of times that Natalie's hard work and passion have made my life better. I'm going to share some of these with you. In no particular order:

1. Natalie knew that when I was at BYU I wanted to direct a children's show for my undergraduate capstone project. Anyone who directed a show could do basically a 45 minute show and I didn't want to chop a show down, I wanted to do a great 45 minute show. So she went to the Library across the street from where we lived several times and brought home dozens of books. She found one that she was convinced would be the one, and I said, "Maybe, but this is my project, so we'll see." That book was called The King and the Magician and was the book, and changed my life forever.
2. One time someone asked if Natalie knew any Chinese becuase I'd been studying it. We realized Natalie knew just a few, like  "Wife", and "please" (which we'd say when we wanted a kiss), and "I love you" she also knew "e" which means hungry and is funny to say. Also, "Thank you." and a semi-cognate "Sandwich". This friend then pointed out that what I'd taught Natalie was, "Wife, I love you. Hungry. Sandwich please. Thank you." Oops.
3. Natalie has always been someone who, kind of like Emma Smith, was willing to open our home to people. I have numerous times said, "Hey, I invited ____ over, and they'll be here in 30 minutes" and with great grace and love, she has people over. She's a great cook, and a great friend, and she loves everyone who walks in the door of our house. 
4. Natalie is good at everything. Literally. Everything. Let me explain. No. There is no time. Let me sum up.
1.  I having spent many many many hours trying to get up to the hardest levels of guitar hero in high school introduced it to natalie, and within 10 minutes, she was playing things on expert becuase the other levels were "awkward to play that slow." Yep. 
2. In this same vein, Natalie beat me at every game we ever played while dating. On our second date we went bowling and she beat be four straight times. We played games with my family, and while she didn't always beat everyone, she always beat me. She's faster, whip smart, and extremely skilled. at all manner of games. And a tiny bit competitive at times.
3. People used to say, "tell me a little about her!" when they heard I had a girlfriend after my mission. It was hard to say that she played 4 instruments, was salutatorian of her class, went to nationals for speech and debate, had so many scholarships to BYU-Idaho in various fields that they literally wouldn't let her accept all of them, and she also is a great dancer. In our time being married, she's only accomplished more including winning awards at Dancesport nationals in Caberet, writing several children's stories, being on UVU's backup tour Ballroom team and dancing at 30+ weeks pregnant including doing some lifts and things, and she's working on a degree in Marriage and Family counseling right now. 
5. Natalie and I love our inside jokes. It's almost weird when people ask why we call each other Charlie. We have all manner of silly stories from chasing each other around our apartments. We have the long standing "your comeuppance is approaching" threat every time she throws water on me (which Matt Wyman may have seen the peak of). And we have so many more strange things that we laugh and joke about. 
6. Natalie almost always lets me pick the shows we watch together. We still need to finish a bunch of them, like Parks and Rec, Big Bang Theory, etc., but if I ask her to watch a show with me she will. This has also included her learning about and loving my sports teams, and going to games with me. 
7. Natalie has sacrificed a lot for me. When we were first married, she encouraged me to take a business class (which I got the second highest grade in and that was while skipping the pre-requisites) and has supported me doing less stable things like teaching theatre and then just going to grad school to do theatre. She has slowed her path through school. She gives up opportunities of things she wants. Our children will never fully understand how much time she takes in doing things for them that she doesn't always love to do. And probably even more so for me. 
8. I moved a lot growing up. 12 times across 3 states in 12 years. I'm now up to 6 states and over 20 different moves. By contrast, Natalie's parents moved into their home they built and still live in when she was 2. Natalie has moved more with me than she had her whole life growing up, and far away from family and friends. She has constantly befriended my friends, and made her own friends. She has dealt with constant turn over and being far away from the places, people and things she loves most. And she has done that for me, and never made me feel bad about it. That everyone should be so lucky.
9. Natalie loves cats. When we were moving from Idaho back to UT, I was in school full time and going to be working nights. She was going to be home alone a lot (including 2 weeks when I went to China!) She was begging to find some place to live where we could have a cat. I was not sure this would happen, but she was. She kept saying, "When we move to Utah and have a cat..." and I'd have to hem and haw. Then when we secured a place, she said, "since we're getting two cats..." .... which happened....
10. Natalie is a person who is sometimes hesitant to try new things, but with a little pushing she always does great. Because she's good at everything. She read Rhonda Rousy's book (which she loves) and then took a Krav Maga class. Natalie wanted to do some paint nights but was worried she'd be no good. Now she has a paint by number and adult coloring books on our desk as well as a sticker by number thanks to our good friend Aubrianna.
11. Natalie loves simple things. Natalie lights up exactly the same with cheap flowers as with nice flowers. Natalie is excited by cheap burgers. Natalie's favorite videogame is a side-scroller called "SpeedRunner" where your goal is literally just to run the other person off of the screen. And, no surprise. She's good at it. Natalie makes simple things that stick around like a wreath made out of thesaurus pages. Like helping with my puppet I was stressed about my first year of school.  And also like our two pretty cute kids.
12. People often tell us that we have cute kids (which is a nice consolation given they're also very loud, and trigger happy with angry outbursts). When they say that, I like to remind them "It's genetic." That usually gets a polite chuckle when people know Natalie, and a skeptical eye when they don't. But ti's true. She's very cute, and our boys are very lucky she is. As my mother (and many others) like to remind me, I married up.
13. And with that, I'd also like to add that she's a great mom. And that's been a hard thing. I'd be totally misleading you if I said either of the following things (1) We're great parents every day with no problems and (2) I didn't know marrying Natalie meant my kids were getting a great mom. Being a parent is harder and more important than any other work I've ever done. I'm in grad school which emotionally taxes a lot of people. Being a good parent requires stronger and better effort. And Natalie has the disadvantages that come with being away from home, and being married to a full-time student. What she does every day is hard. And she does it well. She spends individual time with our kids. She responds to their needs. She calls me to talk about them several times a day. She takes time out of what she'd like to do to be with them. She takes more time to do the things that have to be done (chores, errands, cooking) to involve them. Because she knows it matters to them. Because she  knows they love it, and they love her. Natalie is the CFO, and the COO, and the CIO, the CRO and the CHRO, and so many more. There will never be powerful enough titles to encompass what she means for me, or for our family. And I love her.

Happy 7th Anniversary. Keep sticking around for many more. 

On Being Brave

What I have written here is hard to write. It may seem somewhat scattered. It probably is. I am dancing around the subject of losing someone who I had a solid teacher-student friendship with as a teacher. I'm not the most qualified person to talk about what an absolute treasure this person is, but I write because I don't know what else to do.

When I was about 11 years old, I was camping with my family in the Payson Lakes area of Utah. I remember that I was sitting in a camping chair (I love camping chairs) drinking a soda (I love soda), and listening to my dad read us "The Princess Bride" as coals were heating up to cook dinner over in a firepit. My younger brother Jacob, who was about 3, was walking in circles around the fire, and in a flash, he suddenly tripped and fell into the pit. He screamed in pain, and I've only seen my dad move that quickly a few times in my life (interestingly mostly to save Jacob) as he ran over to get him.

Listening to his pain was agonizing. There were three very distinct circles on his arm where he'd fallen on coals.We immediately broke camp, took down what we could, and loaded my brother into the back of our van and drove down to visit our neighbor who was his pediatrician. He was crying intermittently, and so I think was my mom who I remember holding him, but we were all rallying around him trying to keep him positive on the way home. We were told that my dad needed to scrape all of the burned skin before he could get any further treatment.

It took one of my parents holding Jacob and telling him to "put on his big brave dog face" and another of my parents carefully but painfully scrubbing his arm, but they eventually got all the burned skin so he could be treated properly.

This story doesn't have a ton of relevance to what I'm going to talk about in my blog post today, other than it feels like what I'm going through right now.

I'm not the person who is hurting, and I'm not the one who can or has to hold the ones who are. I'm not the person most qualified to talk about the truly lovely person I'm going to talk about. Who I am is a person who is strengthed by this person, and who has to be like Jacob and put on my big brave dog face to talk about this while it's still painful.

Because talking about the people we lose in life is hard.

When I finished my undergrad, one of my favorite professors said, "I guess you're my colleague now since we have the same degree!" We did lunch as friends, and we talked as friends. In that vein, I don't really consider any of my students as "former" students unless they graduate from high school, and even if I'm not contracted as their teacher, maintaining that relationship (or at least leaving it open in case of need) is something I care deeply about doing.

C.S. Lewis wrote, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” 

My heart was broken today, and so, I know, were many others. Some much more broken than my own. This person I write about today is one of my students, someone who is great.

When I first started teaching, two memorable things happened in the Drama 1 class that I took over for right away. The first is that as I was playing games trying to learn names, two of my young female students who were good friends and standing next to one another kept calling themselves by one another's names. Their names started with the same letter and mostly consisted of the same letters (Like Josie and Jacey, but not that). They were just different enough to be thrown off, and so I mixed them up. They were the last two for me to remember, and my memory of their names was impacted until halfway through the year when they'd been such great students in the class that I was forced to remember their names.

The other thing that happened was a student vomiting spectacularly. The student I write about today was one of the former, and not the latter.

This student is cut from the cloth of some of my favorite people. She's is school smart without losing touch with humanity and being unable to be socially successful as well. In my book, it meant that while she did well on the assignments, it also meant that she would mock me as well. If my students don't engage in playful banter in class, I wonder why they're taking theatre. This student did that from day one.

This student also made her presence known in class. She lead without being someone who felt the need to steal the spotlight all the time. I can rememeber many times when she and her friend (whose names I used to mix up), would ask probing questions that would get to the heart of my lesson, and I'd have to find a way to misdirect them a little so the whole point of my lesson wasn't blown. That kind of critical thinking is what I hope to instill in my students, and what gave me glimpses of her great potential in the future. It's the kind of skill that you hope to see in everyone, and not just in theatre makers.

I'm a person with a loud laugh, and who appreciates good jokes. I love to put my students in situations that are ethical and emotionally safe, but give them the freedom to be challenged and make mistakes. This student was in a class where I taught an improvisation unit, a radio drama unit, pantomime and public speaking. She excelled at everything and did so without acting like I had nothing to teach her. She committed to characters, and used her strong voice, and expressive face to communicate things on the stage of our class that were impossible ignore, and deeply praiseworthy.

Most of all, I remember something that pushed me. I pride myself on my ability to connect with people. Mostly by trying not to be a jerk. But I knew that students are a different ball game. The goal is to connect them to content; of special importance is to do that in a setting where you know your impact is temporary. As a student teacher, I didn't want any of my young drama students to like drama because they liked me. I wanted them to like Drama because they liked themselves in it.

I think I succeeded in that count for the most part. Though this student I speak of, this total wonderful sweetheart of a student, made me see that it is possible to do both. On my last day as her teacher, she hugged me and said that I was the best teacher she'd had (something I know not all students say because 99% of mine don't!), and then the dear mentor teacher I work with told me that when he took that class back over she went out of her way to remind him that I was a better teacher.

This is hard to write because the world lost them absolute gem yesterday. Youth is hard. I don't know everything there is to know about what happened, but I know that the news of it broke my heart. My three year old saw me sitting at the table sobbing, something he had never seen, and asked why I was sad. I told him that one of my friends got hurt, and I showed him a picture of her. He said, "Daddy's friend is so nice."

Which is true. She is. May God bless and keep her, always.