It's All in the View

Last night I watched the sun go down through hazy clouds over the Bay while listening to the gentle sloshing of the waves. From where I stood I could see the man-made wonders of the Bay Bridge on my left and the Golden Gate Bridge on my right. When we first arrived at the beach, two airplane tailings perfectly crossed the sun as if to x it out. But the golden sun soon dipped below the x to sit over the land in a final pronouncement of majesty before it began to disappear.

After saying goodnight to this glorious sunset, we traveled back to the hotel through the dusky streets Mapquest directed. The streets emanated dismal, industrial, ghetto. Vision was limited by walls, fences, houses, and trees that confined and encroached. Litter, vulgar advertisements, persistent honking cars jolted us from the peace of the sunset.

We reached our hotel which is situated in the Berkeley Hills and ate dinner at a table overlooking the valley and the Bay. Lifted there on the hill, I could once again see both bridges outlined in lights against the dark night and observed the wonder of the lights shining in yellows, reds, oranges, greens, and blues as if in celebration of something great. From up there on the hill the world was once again beautiful—expansive, enlightening, encouraging.

It made me think about the fact that we often have to pass through the dismal, vulgar, painful parts of life. Those paths are necessary in order to get to the beautiful things God has in store for us. But God has given us temples and scriptures and many other things that will lift us out of the mundane and help us see the bigger, more beautiful picture. When we visit the majestic places often, we not only are encouraged but it gives us memories that can motivate us when traveling the dismal and mundane paths of life.

Perspective

I thought I'd share a snippet of one of the chapters from my new book, Gospel Insights for Everyday Living. I hope you enjoy!

"There are some moments in life that change you forever. One of those happened to me many years ago during a Relief Society lesson. I don’t remember what the lesson was about, but somehow it had turned into a discussion of husbands’ faults. One after another of the sisters began to complain about her husband’s lack of responsiveness or his failure to help out
around the house, etc. You’ve all been in a situation like that and know how contagious negative feelings are.

At the time, my husband was bishop and our ward was very large. He was gone almost every night, leaving me to care for our five children under the age of eight. In short, I felt overwhelmed
and alone, so as I listened to the other women complain, my husband’s faults and failings kept popping into my head. With every new comment from the group, another fault of his would
come to mind and I’d think, “Yea, my husband does that too!” or “That isn’t half as bad as what Carl does (or doesn’t) do!”

The Relief Society instructor failed to get the class back on track, and as the comments got more negative so did the feelings within me. I didn’t vocalize them, but I certainly was thinking them, and those thoughts were generating all kinds of hot, negative feelings within me.

But then something happened that changed me. A woman in the back of the room began to rave about how her husband made a mess in the entryway every time he came home from work. He worked construction and he’d take off his dirty boots as soon as he entered the house, drop them near the door, walk into the family room, plop down to watch the evening news, and pull off his stinky socks, dropping them beside the couch for her to pick up later. “It’s disgusting,” she said, and several women nodded in agreement.

But at that point the elderly woman sitting in front of me, who had been a widow for 23 years, turned to her gray-haired friend sitting next to her, a widow of 19 years, and whispered, “I
wish I had socks on my floor.”

I’m sure that besides the friend, I am the only person in the room that heard those words—words that pierced my heart and instantly erased all my negative thoughts and feelings. In that moment, my perspective shifted from that of victim of my husband’s thoughtlessness to that of grateful wife. I had someone to pick up after—what a blessing!

Seeing and Telling It Like It Is!

I love starting my day by walking with a group of women that live around me. I love the exercise, but most of all I love learning from them. For example, most of these women own and love dogs. Often they bring their dogs along. Now, I’m not much of an animal lover. It isn’t that I don’t like animals or that I’m afraid of them. The problem is that I was raised by a mother who anytime I got near an animal shrieked, "Wash your hands. Don’t you know animals have germs." So I guess you can say I have an aversion to animals. At any rate as we walked I kept listening to these women complain about their dogs. The stories of dogs eating the family dinner, or dogs getting sick on the floor, or new puppies destroying furniture, or exorbitant fees from vets, or the time it takes to get the dog groomed, or dog accidents in the house, or dog hair on the carpet came up in various versions often. Every time I’d hear them talk I’d silently wonder if dogs were such a nuisance why they kept them around. I couldn’t figure it out.
Then one day a dog that had often walked with us died. Kathy, who belonged to the dog, was devastated. Part of her family had died. She cried and we comforted and grieved with her. As I observed the sorrow, I suddenly realized that there must be more to owning a dog than had been revealed to me in our morning conversations. So after a time, I expressed my observation that all I’d ever heard about the dogs was negative. Sharon countered quickly by saying that I just didn’t hear the good things. And all of them began to tell me everything they loved about their dogs. To be very honest, despite what Sharon said, that was the first time I’d heard the good things.
As I pondered on this experience I learned two things. One is that often in life we vent to friends and those around us about the negative things in our lives and forget to bring up the good. In this way we pass on some unintentional negative feelings. How many times do we complain about our children or a work situation or another person and leave our listener with the impression that what we are complaining about is totally terrible when we don’t really think that at all? We’re just venting or even just telling a story. The other thing I realized is that the dog lovers in the group heard the stories very differently than I did. When they heard a story of a dog eating the family’s dinner they detected a note of love in the voice that countered the negative part of the story because they were hearing the story from a different perspective. In short, I’ve learned to watch to make sure I express the positive as well as the negative and that I don’t leave a wrong impression. After all I wouldn’t want someone to not have children because all they heard from me was complaints about my kids or to not go on for higher education because I complained about the work load. I’ve also learned to listen for the tone that conveys the love even in the complaints. As I’ve done this, I’ve been surprised to discover how often it is there!