Wednesday, November 13, 2019

On Relationship an essay for COMM 150 BYUI


Steven Bassett
COMM 150
November 11, 2019






My Most Important Relationships











Angie Miller
My Most Important Personal Relationships

¨       The Godhead
Ø  Father
Ø  Son
Ø  Holy ghost
¨       My wife
¨       My children
Ø  Ashley
Ø  Nicholas
Ø  Bryce
¨       My Parents
Ø  Father
Ø  Mother
¨       My Faith Communities
Ø  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Ø  Greater Christianity
Ø  Non-Christians
Ø  Atheist – Agnostics









The Godhead

            God the Father



In his debut novel, The Shack, William P. Young tells the story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips.  Mack is invited by Papa, his wife’s name for God, to spend the weekend with her in the Shack.  The shack is the place, where a year ago, his young daughter was used as a man's play toy and then murdered.  Mack has spent the last year in a place of anger and shame.  His relationships with his remaining daughter and son are strained.  He learns his daughter still blames herself for distracting her father and allowing Missy to be taken.  The family is stuck with no way to go forward.
Papa is Nan’s, his wife, name for God.  When he arrives at the shack it is transformed into a beautiful cabin by a lakeside.  He is introduced to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  The Father appears in the form of an elderly Negro lady.  She prefers to call herself Elousia.  She comes in the female form because she fears Mac will reject her if she appears as a man. 

At first, Mac is very angry and defensive. He is angry that God was not there for Missy and that she was not there for her son Jesus while he hung on the cross. There is a scene where Mac and Papa are needing bread in the Kitchen and Papa shows him the scares she received while her son hung on the cross.


For many years my own relationship with my mother was strained.  This image of Papa reminds me of my Mom when I began to see her as she truly was today and not the woman she was when I was younger.  I have learned not to allow the “Noise” of our relationships to interfere with those relationships.

               

God the Son


I love this image by Brian Kershisnik.  It is from his series, Jesus and the Angry Babies.  You see babies squirming on Jesus' lap as he seeks to comfort them.  Some of them are trying to crawl off.  One is cuddling in the background.  One is angry and scowling at Jesus
I am not sure which of these babies is me.
I sometimes feel like one of these babies, both wanting to be cuddled by and climb off of the lap of Jesus.
It reminds me of one of my favorite songs, Casting Crown “Just be held”.

In our relationships, it is not just about what I get out of it or what you get out of it, but how we both become enriched through the relationship. Don’t let the “Vultures” in to interfere with the relationship.
  




The Holy Spirit

In this scene from The Shack we see the Holy Spirit, called Sarayu, watering the Garden with Mac’s tears.  The Garden represents Mac and his mind and spirit. 
It is in this garden that they bury Missy’s recovered body, in a coffin that God the Son built for her.
We see that God the Father can now appear to Mac in his male form.   Their relationship is healed.  Sarayu’s place in the Godhead is to confirm the relationship. I am never certain of my relationship to the Holy Spirit.  I know that he does confirm the truth and relationship.
In this scene we see them burying Missy, in Mac’s Garden.

We heal our relationships by listening to the other.  This then is the transactional model of relationship.


  

My Wife

This is a photo of Bonnie and me at our wedding reception.  I told her I was not going to wear a suit or stand in any kind of reception line.  I purchased a new set of bib overalls and wore my best white shirt. Today I wear dress Levi’s to church. I started writing poetry as a way to comfort myself when I learn she had stage 4 stomach cancer.
It seems like, my wife and I, are like two great stars, as we each growing brighter, the orbit between us grows wider and wider.  I live with my father now fulltime.  I am his caregiver.  My wife has offered my father this gift, in his twilight years.  My wife has known my father longer then she has known me.  They were working together at the hospital when dad convinced me to ask her out on a date.  She has told me many times that she promised she would never marry one of his sons. I am not sure why she agreed to go out with me that first time. Our first date was at a swimming party and she is afraid of water. She has stood by me for 30 years now.  I am certain of her love for me and our children.  I am learned to let her become, as she lets me become as I improve in “The listening process”.


On the Loss of Possibility
Is the pain any less, for the loss of a possibility?
I ask myself this question, one day at work.

Help me make a baby she had said,
On the first time, on that second night.
It began with the gentle nibbling on her ear.
It was good that first night, and the many to follow.
In a matter of weeks, they were in that first home.
The first one they purchased, together.
He came home one evening, twins she said, coming soon.
Then one night the home teacher they called.
A blessing she wanted, to keep the babies.
Then the loss of those two possibilities.
Still together they worked, on creating the babies.
In time they learned of the loss of the possibility.
He had been born sterile, no babies would he ever produce.
Still, the pain he remembered, from the loss
of the first two possibilities.
He would keep the memory of the pain, of the loss.
He would recall it when he needed to understand the loss of the others,
and their possibilities.
With time the handmaiden would provide the babies.
He would teach his children to honor the handmaiden,
as he and his wife raised their new possibilities.
Still, he carried with him, the pain of the loss, of those first two, possibilities.

Alan Jackson “Remember When”



The Children  



I was lucky to adopt two beautiful children, on the left is Nicholas, on the right is Ashley, between them, is there older brother, Cody, who was raised by his grandmother. They were created for us by a woman we love and adore.  She is my wife’s younger sister.  When she learned my wife and I could not have children she created two for us.  They were not mistakes and they were always loved, and wanted, by their Birth Mother.










This is taken at my daughter’s wedding.  On the right is my final son Bryce.  Our relationship was tense at first.  We are both mellowing with age.  I always referred to him as my son though at first, this made him very angry.

I have learned from them the role of “Attention to Listening” is in a relationship. I was so angry in this photo.  My wife was still terminal and life was not worth living.  I was uncertain what my relationship with my children would be like after she died. That morning I nearly took my own life.  I am glad I didn’t. I would have lost all of the joy I feel today.


The Gardener and the Cure

It is growing now, in the garage.
The Gardner brought the solution,
he tells you to believe.

You have no faith in the cure,
but the peace it may bring.

This herb, this evil then, they tell you.
This gateway to Hell.

But you live in Hell, now.
To risk it all, now you do.
For the life of the loved one,
you do adore.

So many fights, through the years,
with each other, to gain the children.

The Gardner will be a 3rd child soon,
with the marriage of your daughter.

For now, there is hope growing in the garden, and peace, in my soul

My Parents

            Mom

In many ways my relationship with my mother is the most complex one.  I was so angry with her for so very long.  I was angry for her not being who I needed when I was younger.  Her father was an alcoholic.   He only showed affection when he was drunk.  My mother rarely held or cuddled me.  She was so young when I was born and Carl and my father were such a handful.  I was raised by my Aunt Nancy until I was three and she moved away to Bountiful Utah. My Mom and Aunt Nancy were so similar, yet so different.
As I grew older, I began to see the “Perception Filter” I had placed around our relationship.  Just before she died, I had that final conversation with my mother when I truly said I finally understood her and I truly forgave her for not being what I needed in those first few years.




 

She closed her heart

Luv her, a choice, not a feeling.

She closed her heart.
Like the lady, that swallowed that fly,
I know not why.

I reached for her, their, as a boy.
There, on the bench, in the car, she beside me.
Cuddled, under her arm, like the puppet, beside me.

She, purchased the puppet, at the pink lady’s shop.
We had gone to the hospital, to discover, why I wet the bed.

She was damaged goods, as was I.
When life gets tough, it hardens you.
You grow a shell, thicker with the growing years.

I wet the bed, this because, distant then, began I to feel ...
Not luved, not wanted, cast aside, This, I had thought.

Forty more years, we spent, in this cuddle, or embrace.
I would reach out, only to be pushed away.
In the end, she reached out, to dance.
only to be brushed away, almost.

Still, once more, we danced and beautiful, it was,

The Dance, Garth Brooks






                        My Father

I live with my father fulltime now.  I work, go to school and care for him.  My wife offered me this choice because she has learned to love my father.  I could sell his home and move him to Franklin but his life is here and there is no room for us there.  There my wife and children’s lives are so full.  I often feel like I am not needed there, but I am very much needed here. I made the choice to attend church with my father now.  Try explaining to a new Bishop why a happily married man would choose to live with his Father and not his wife.  When I pray and speak to my wife, I know that we are making the right choices now.
My Father and I share a simple, wedding band.  It is a simple sterling wedding band, most likely purchased at a pawn shop.  It was discarded by another when its value in cash exceeded its value in sentiment.  He wore it daily as a reminder of the covenant they shared.  It was not the first band, that band stayed behind in the jewelry box.  It was too valuable and easily damaged.  The first would not endure long, in the room where he washed clothes to feed their growing family.

The ring we share

She is gone now,
yet they are one.

This we share, now.
The three of us.

A covenant,
a promise,
a ring.

Once it was shared,
by two, then came two more,
and the temple ceremony,

then two more,

Dad gave me the ring,
years ago.

Now four more are bound,
by the ring, the promise,
and the covenant.

My father gave me his second wedding band, which I now wear.
I have three siblings and two children


.








The final relationships I have are with my faith communities. As you can see from the beginning of this essay.  My relationship with my God and the Godhead is central to my life. My Relationship to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints is changing and evolving.  I have a temple recommend for the first time in decades, yet I no longer feel its central draw to my life.  Like a great Venn Diagram, I am expanding my faith community to include all of his children. 

¨       My Faith Communities
Ø  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Ø  Greater Christianity
Ø  Non-Christians
Ø  Atheist – Agnostics

I have for decades searched out the non-Mormon and non-Christian prophets.  My favorite one now, and I suspect will always be, is John Milton.  In his great works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, you learn of the fall of Adam and Eve, the battle in the pre-Earth life and of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness.  I admire the Christian Bishops who served their congregations, and their wife’s in the time between the death of the prophets and the rebirth of Christianity in the late middle ages.  I refuse to call them dark ages because there was great light during this period even if there was great persecution.

Revelations 12
5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

Terryl Givens speaks in many of his books and lectures on how at the death of the apostle, the church, like the woman, in the scripture quoted above, was carried into the wilderness where she was sheltered and fed by his poets and writers.


"I have heard some people say, — If God revealed himself to men in other days, why not reveal himself to us?” I say, why not to us?  ...  There were men who could gaze upon the face of God, have the ministering of angels, and unfold the future destinies worldwide. If those were dark ages, I pray God to give me a little darkness and deliver me from the light and intelligence that prevail in our day” (Taylor).




"I have heard some people say, — If God revealed himself to men in other days, why not reveal himself to us?” I say, why not to us?  ...  There were men who could gaze upon the face of God, have the ministering of angels, and unfold the future destinies worldwide. If those were dark ages, I pray God to give me a little darkness and deliver me from the light and intelligence that prevail in our day” (Taylor).



1 Peter 4:6

For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.



This scripture has often puzzled me?  How do men live like God in the spirit and yet be judged like men in the flesh?  I have sought to generalize salvation using the doctrines first shared by Joseph Smith.  When you combine The Light of Christ with The Atonement of Christ and temple ordinances it became possible to save all men who seek to be saved and who develop a Christ-like soul though they never learn the name of Christ or his teachings in this life.

I am learning to enjoy this class.  I am learning to enjoy my relationships with those around me.  I have felt real joy, this past year, for the first time in years.  It is interesting how much stronger my relationship is with my wife now we no longer live in the same house.  Maybe I have stopped taking her for granted.  Maybe I am just working harder at our relationship because our lives are so separate right now.  I often wonder if it is the right thing to do with my life.  My wife says it is not forever.  In the eternal scheme of things, this next decade will be a short period of time and our relationship will grow much stronger.



I guess I am learning that life is good and that life is worth living.  That I should enjoy every day for I know not how many days I have left.



Maybe I can leave you one last link to an essay I wrote for my English class last year.


“This I Believe”



Maybe I can leave you one last link to an essay I wrote for my English class last year.

“This I Believe”





References.
Young, William P. The Shack. Hodder Windblown, 2017.
Casting Crowns, “Just be Held”, Thrive, 2014
Givens, Terryl, and Fiona Givens. “The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life.” Amazon, Ensign Peak, 2012, https://www.amazon.com/God-Who-Weeps-Mormonism-Makes/dp/1609071883.

“The Knowledge of God and Mode of Worshiping Him John Taylor.” John Taylor: The Knowledge of God, Etc (Journal of Discourses), journalofdiscourses.com/16/26.


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