publishing peace

Have you ever had an ache? I'm being serious. Has there ever been a pain that persisted, maybe in your back or your hands or your head, that was relentless? Something that, no matter what you tried, was just kind of always there, in the back of your mind, so you could never really be comfortable? I have had such an ache in my physical body. It's distracting. It's sometimes debilitating -- sometimes it's impossible to do anything without thinking about the ache. I think everyone has experienced and will experience these physical aches. Something we talk about less, though, are the emotional aches. Sometimes these aches are the result of the actions of other people -- to have any kind of fulfilling relationship at all, we have to risk hurting and being hurt by people. It is also, like a physical ache, something that happens to everyone at some point or another; nobody I'm aware of hasn't experienced to some degree the loss of a love or a friendship or the loneline...

Hi, sweet friend. I don't know why you decided to click on this link and read this today, but I'm really glad you're here. I hope what you read will sink in. I just want you to know that you're needed here. I'm glad you're not like everyone else and you have your own thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs. I'm glad you don't look like other people or dress like other people or listen to the same things other people listen to or feel your feelings in the same way other people feel them. That's good -- you have so much to offer me, and others. You, the way you are, right now, are important and needed. There's no one like you, and I am so jazzed about that. You are strong. The past few months have been tough on all of us, but look at you -- you made it here, to this point. And I don't care who you are, that took some serious mojo. And that's not all -- you didn't only come this far to stop here. You can keep going. You can do what you...

In 2009, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a talk in which he addressed "those who are alone or feel alone or, worse yet, feel abandoned." I have often read this talk. It's encouraging to me that it's a common enough feeling for faithful people that an apostle felt the need to speak about it to a vast global audience. It reminds me of a Bible story that I only recently connected to this feeling. When Jesus had just been resurrected, he appeared to all his disciples -- all but one.  Thomas wasn't there when Jesus visited the disciples the first time. I can only imagine what he must have felt upon meeting his friends, only to hear that Jesus had miraculously shown Himself again. Mingled with impossible hope, surely there must have been some indignation, maybe even some anger, that Christ had chosen the time when he was absent to visit the disciples.  Part of me wonders if Thomas simply said that he didn't believe the Savior had come, not because he didn...

It took me until this year to feel similarly to how I feel at Christmas at Eastertime. I would never try to pit these two beautiful days against each other. One celebrates the beginning of Christ's unmatched mortal life -- the other celebrates His triumph over death, both physical and spiritual. I also understand the differences between these two days in the emotions that surround them. With Christmas, it is warm, and shimmering, and exciting. With Easter, it is more somber, as we contemplate the life that was given so we may have life eternal. But this year, perhaps more than any year before, I have come to appreciate Easter like I learned to appreciate Christmas as a younger Em. It was always easy for me, as a naturally happy person, to understand the joy that Christmas brings; but it hasn't been until this past year that I've come to understand, if not fully, then surely deeper than I ever have, the beauty of Easter, and the different kind of joy in its celebratio...

Okay, as a disclaimer here, I feel like this post is something that my in-person friends have heard me say a lot, and I may have also touched on it briefly here, so if you feel like you're having deja vu, it's because I'm basic and predictable. Now that we've got THAT outta the way, I want to talk about love again, but this time, in a different way. And also, I'm going to talk about faith again, but differently. So really, I'm a broken record. I currently lead the church choir for my congregation. Right now we're singing a song called "I Believe". Composed by Mark A. Miller, the lyrics are modified from an anonymous poem written by a Jewish fugitive on the wall of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, around the time of the Holocaust. Those lyrics are: "I believe in the sun even when it's not shining.  I believe in love even when I don't feel it. I believe in God even when God is silent." These lyrics teach a principl...