The Flying Dream

Ashley got the window seat on our flight from PDX to SLC this week. With her restricted mobility, time in the sky is ecstasy for Ashley, especially if she can peer down on the world through clouds. Her face beams: I was BORN to fly. (See Angel Talkin')

Squishing my cheek to hers, I tried to absorb some of her joy. The view reminded me of The Flying Dream. For years, I was plagued by this strange, subconscious fantasy. I don’t know how you've done it in your sleep, but my legs would start rotating like I was riding a unicycle. (How you start this process while still ground-bound is never clear.) The gist of the exercise is that the harder and faster I pumped the invisible pedals, the faster and higher I rose.

It was very heady of course to be air born, to escape the bad guys who were chasing me seconds ago, to sail over skyscrapers and to look down on tiny things. But it never lasted. Sooner or later, even with all the imagination-fluid-in-the-world lubricating my quads, I started to lose altitude. The realization that I was goin’ down was terrifying, a real first-class nightmare. Bad guys, who had been tracking my flight, were of course, waiting at the bottom.

I am grateful to say I’ve been free of The Flying Dream for a long time now. It became less and less frequent when I figured out that I didn’t have to “pedal” so hard….

I lived my early twenty-something life like every day was finals week -– a constant state of “cramming” for the “test”. You name it: index cards, strings on my finger, refrigerator magnets from Relief Society, embroidered scriptures on the wall, charts, how-to books, and sheer will: I filled my environment with these reminders that I was a daughter of a GOD –- and, therefore, logically, a daughter who ought to be “perfect”. Not having been taught the gospel in my home as a child, there were holes in my doctrinal understanding, and this was a big one.

Sadly, my little family suffered for it. Looking back, I can see that my mothering was too intense at times -- especially on my oldest son. He was just a little guy, so sweet and good, and not even out of Sunbeams when I took him firmly him by the shoulders and told him to “PERFORM”. We had been practicing his four-word line for the Primary Sacrament meeting program and I knew he knew it. But at the moment of truth, he refused to leave my side and go up to the podium with the other children. I was aghast at this breech of our reputation, our family honor! Likewise, I’m sure my humble honey-man was roughed over now and again for chancing to be ill on a Sunday, or forgetting the tithing check.

Dale theorizes that some women are frustrated every Sunday morning when their Priesthood husbands do not don a red cape with a big "P" on it, straddle the front doorway in their Sunday suit-- fists to hips--and boom out: "Come on kids! We're going to FLYYYY to church!"

The spiritual evolution or rebirth I went through was gradual. I do remember though, when it began. I was at a stake women's conference and the speaker introduced a concept honestly new to me: GRACE. She spoke of the folly of trying to “earn” our way into the Celestial Kingdom, describing a Savior who stands with open arms to embrace us while we keep our distance with excuses like: “I’ll be right back…have to go to the temple” … or "have to deliver these cookies"...or "have to study my lesson"… (Mormon 6:17) This visual struck a deep chord with me.

Years of scripture study followed. I became particularly sensitive to the humanity of the prophets:

Paul: “For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle.”

Nephi: “O wretched man that I am!”

Brother of Jared: “Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness…”

Moses: “Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent…but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”

Jeremiah: “I, ah Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak: for I am but a child.”

Moroni: “Lord, the Gentiles will mock at these things because of our weakness…when we write we…stumble…”

Isaiah: “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips…”

HOW, I wondered, were these people able to continue toward greatness, despite their inadequacies? Paul really stumped me: "For we are glad, when we are weak..." WHAT?! How can we be glad to be weak? Another Paul-zinger: “Be perfect, be of good comfort.” Oookaaay…how can we be told to be perfect AND comforted in the same breath?

I knew what the end was supposed to be, without being square on how to get to that end. I was living the gospel like a project manager with complicated, detailed lists and flow charts and deadlines and goals and it wasn’t working.

As I say, it took a long time, years of study and prayer before I fully accepted the answer -– the answer that’s as obvious as any doctrine in scripture:

Brother of Jared: “….thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires…” (note: not our lists)

The Lord about the Prophet Joseph: “…and in weakness have I blessed him.”

The Lord to Moroni: “And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong…”

The good news is NOT that perfect people can be reconciled to God, but that imperfect people can. Christ shares his sinlessness, righteousness, merits with the penitent. In his mercy He offers His perfection, in absence of our own. Personal "perfection", or "finishing", is a long, long way off--impossible to attain in this life. In essence, our piles of lists and flow charts can be boiled down to ONE goal:

Uniting ourselves with Jesus, becoming One with Him through a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

When this lesson sunk deep, Moroni’s charge to “lay a hold of every good thing” no longer perplexed me. My life had been a juggling act of “good things”, but now I knew that I just needed to wrap my arms around the Savior and hold on tight. I found my prayers become very very real, very very sincere, very very specific, very very frequent. I devoured the Book of Mormon six times in one year. Good works, good feelings, good relationships, good opportunities, good choices naturally resulted. Looking back on the years since my “rebirth”, I can hardly believe what I have been able to accomplish and become.

This was possible not just because I was embracing the Savior, but because He was holding ME. The fear of "falling" (Jude 1:24) melted away as little by little I felt “lifted up”, not in pride, but in perspective. I began to see others, especially my family, through the Lord’s eyes. My sense of humility, charity, and patience gradually increased. I accepted and made allowance for imperfection, enjoying wife-dom and motherhood so much more after that: "discovering" my children instead of "molding" them, "appreciating" my husband instead of "perfecting" him.

It all came down to loving Jesus, trusting in His promise of celestial somedays.......

Moroni described his own resurrection day as being “brought forth triumphant through the air…” and Isaiah promised that the Lord “giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength…they that wait upon the Lord shall…mount up with wings as eagles…”

No pedaling required.

How has the gospel affected your perspective on your relationship with your spouse, children or other family? How have you come to deal with your own imperfection?