Remembering How Easily We Forget.

 

I rode a bike every day for two years. I did it in the miserable Georgia heat. I did it while gallons upon gallons of water poured out of the sky and onto my head. I did it wearing a suit and tie. It was the sort of physical and practical challenge that seeps into every bit of your daily life no matter how menial. Like getting groceries; how do you plan to get them home? The Laundromat? How about an important presentation five miles away and dark storm clouds are gathering overhead? What about the winter when it gets dark at 5 o’clock? I lived with those questions, and the challenge of answering them, every day for two whole years. That was nearly twenty years ago. I will never forget it.

With all that in mind I recently started riding a bike every morning. I teach a class of high schoolers early in the morning and the idea of saving some gas money and spending some calories made sense. I didn’t make this decision flippantly; I put some real thought into it. I remembered what it was like to ride a bike to get somewhere, as opposed to riding for pure recreation. I knew what I was getting into.

But not really.

I remembered all sorts of little details, I could recount stories, I knew stuff. But it wasn’t till I began pedaling a fixed gear tank with all 250 lbs of me on top, up a giant hill, into a headwind, did I really remember riding a bike.

As my thighs swelled and tightened, and blood rushed to my face, true memory flooded my mind and soul. I remembered riding a bike. It hurt. A lot. Stashing my bike in the closet of the classroom with a sweaty shirt sticking to my arms, worrying that I was such a disgusting display of humanity that no one would ever listen to a thing I had to teach; I remembered riding a bike.

It gave me something to think about as I pedaled back home. How easily we forget.

I haven’t seen a homeless person in months.

Back where I used to live, there was this guy in a wheelchair that used to wheel down the middle of our small street collecting discarded scraps of metal. He was dirty. The kind of dirty you can’t fake with a one day roll in the dust, you have to compile this kind of dirt the hard way. It was a regular part of my day to sit in the car waiting for him to wheel his way across the street, or to the end of the block, so I could get my car to where I needed to go.

I used to spend hours on the phone with the local electric company, while a little old lady would sit on the couch next to me sobbing, a past due notice in her shaky hands. I do not have enough fingers to count the number of people I visited regularly that heated their homes by turning the oven on high and leaving the oven door open. It is the poor person’s version of a fireplace. Every day, at least for a moment, I would have to not only see poverty, but interact with it just a little. Sometimes a lot. It was as much a part of my life as that bike used to be.

Pedaling past palm trees on my way to the swimming pool, I wonder how much I have already forgotten.

I read a scripture today in which the resurrected Jesus took bread and wine, passed it to those who were with him, and instructed them to eat it in order to remember him. Remember him? Not only was he right there with them, but these people had just watched this resurrected man descend from the sky in a cloud of light. They had just gone up and touched the holes in his hands, feet, and side. This was God’s son in all his glory. How could they ever forget?

But he knew they would. We can’t help it. Even when we can recall what happened, feelings fade. There is something in the remembering that fades. Jesus, on the first day of this remarkable visit, told them he would be back tomorrow, then, before saying goodnight, set up the taking of bread and wine as a process by which we should remember him. He told them to repeat this ceremony often.

Because we forget.

How can I expect myself or anyone to remember what true poverty is like if we aren’t in it? How can anyone who hasn’t been in it ever really comprehend how hard it is? It is like riding that bike up the hill, remembering how hard it is, is nothing compared to feeling the tight burning in my legs. Many who have lived in it before, been raised in it, struggled to escape it, are going to at some level forget it. The memory will fade into stories, events, recollections, but not the same feelings.

Unless we do something. Not just remember, but do.

Unless we somehow eat the bread and drink the wine. Unless we sit on the couch and call the electric company. Unless we help wheelchair man pick up the pile of tin cans he just spilled all over the street. Not only will we forget, but the poor will be completely forgotten.

And no one really escapes poverty on their own.

I Remembered Rose a Little too Late

I remember Rose. I wish I could do more than remember but I don’t have a choice.
Rose was the perfect name for her.
I have no idea how old she was but she looked about ninety. She was just like any elderly black woman you might see in a movie; toothless, sappy sweet, with just a little touch of sass. She was once a nurse; had been for forty years. She was never married and had no children. She lived with her nephew and an assortment of other characters that I could never keep straight. Cousins, nieces, grand cousins, play cousins, but they all looked older than fifty and none of them spoke to me unless I addressed them directly.

I met Rose when some missionaries asked me to come along for a discussion. She lived in a row house in North Philadelphia. It was the grand kind of place I would have loved to have seen when it was new, but that would have been about 1850 and it had long since been subdivided into apartments and I doubt many had loved to see it for at least fifty years. There were two short sets of stairs leading up to her front porch which was a large cement slab surrounded by a crooked railing.
She spent her days sitting in the living room, sharing the space with an old TV, a ratty couch, and an upturned coffee can filled with cigarette butts. She never went anywhere. She never left the room. She didn’t wander because she only had one foot. She lost it to diabetes some years before and so now she sat in her wheelchair on the ground floor of a three-story apartment. The others in the house seemed to go up and down, in and out, passing Rose the same way they passed the ratty couch and the old TV. The coffee can wasn’t hers. She didn’t smoke.”Naw honey. Gave that up years ago. T’aint good for ya and I gots enough problems as it is. That can’s for everybody else in this house. I wished they’d smoke ’em out on the porch but I guess its cold out there. Anyways, at least when they’s smokin’ in here I can talk to ’em a little.”
Rose found the missionaries when they knocked on her door and she hollered for them to come inside. Maybe she just wanted someone to talk to. Maybe she had been sitting there waiting for them. Whatever it was, they found each other and they called me to come along. “Miss Rose has lots of questions and has been reading quite a bit,” the Elder’s informed me. “Today we will be talking about church and baptism.” Now I knew why they really asked me to come along; my minivan.

I was happy to offer my services to help Rose attend church that upcoming Sunday. She was the only one in the house who had any interest in the gospel but it didn’t matter because none of them owned a car. “You sure that aint a problem? You sure you don’t mind coming all out your way to get me?” she asked. I did not mind at all. 8:30 that next Sunday Rose was waiting for me right on the other side of the screen door. She would have been on the porch but couldn’t get herself up over the door jamb. I wheeled her around backwards and we bump, bump, bumped our way down those two small sets of stairs and then I gallantly lifted her out of her chair and set her in the passenger seat of the van. “Hi Rose,” my daughter and wife called out to her. “Hello everybody,” she replied and we drove off to the chapel.

This became our regular Sunday pattern up through her baptism and a month or so after as well. But then my responsibilities changed and I was no longer available Sunday mornings. I couldn’t call to tell Rose because she had no phone. I stopped by on a Wednesday to tell her I couldn’t be there on Sunday and she apologized to me. She was sorry to be any trouble. I promised I would try to find someone else.

The only person I could find was Brother Berry.

I hadn’t really thought this through very well. Brother Berry was perhaps the only person I knew who was older than Rose. Despite his age Brother Berry would volunteer for anything and they were the only other people we knew with a van. That Sunday morning the Berry’s showed up without Rose. Sister Berry marched up to me and launched into some high decibel diatribe about Brother Berry’s back and stairs and wheelchairs, heart attacks, and another thing coming. I pled forgiveness. Looking back I guess it was my fault. I had assumed that Brother Berry had a plan or was simply more capable than I thought. He was not capable, just willing. After church I drove over to visit Rose and she apologized to me again.

After five months of asking for volunteers and organizing Rose had still never made it back to church. I refused to accept that I was the only solution. Besides, I had other things to worry about than just Rose. So I continued to try to find her rides and would swing by to visit her on weekdays as often as I could. I felt guilty I wasn’t able to be her taxi and was inspired by the addition of a blue book with gold print as the newest piece of living room furniture. It didn’t take long for that blue book to look as used and ratty as the sofa it sat next too.

Before too long our ward welcomed a set of senior missionaries. They weren’t all that old, they were full time, and best of all they had a car. I asked them to please go get Rose. And they did.
I was so happy when this good Elder wheeled Rose into the chapel. She reached out to give me a big hug repeatedly asking, “Where’s the baby?” till my two year old was eventually produced to be hugged as well. It was a great day till about four o’clock.

At four I got a phone call from this Elder’s wife telling me all about her husband’s back problems, his age, and the challenges of getting Rose back up those stinking stairs. I apologized. I often find myself in situations where this is appropriate. This senior Elder spent a day and a half resting hs back but had the bright idea of a deal moving forward. If I couldn’t be there to pick her up, and he couldn’t get her home, maybe we should work together. He would go get her if I would take her home.

Deal.

That next Sunday the senior missionaries showed up without Rose. When they arrived at her home one of the others in the house told us she was in the hospital. Something about her diabetes and surgery. No one there seemed willing or able to tell us anything more than that. After church the senior couple began calling hospitals eventually tracking her down. That Tuesday I paid her a visit.
There she was, smiling her toothless grin. She had lost her other foot but not her smile. She chuckled and waved me into the room past an extra bed that looked to hold a large pile of pillows and sheets. “That’s Clara”, she said pointing to the other bed. “She upset because they won’t let her smoke and I keeps reading the Book of Mormon out loud.” With that she winked at me and pulled open a side drawer to show me her dog eared scriptures. I love that she had her scriptures and loved even more that she winked at me. How could anyone not like Rose?

The senior couple continued to visit Rose till she was moved to a convalescent home nearby. We all talked about how it would soon be time to start arranging for her to get rides to church again, there was some discussion about maybe perhaps bringing her the sacrament, but no one felt any urgency. Things were just moving along. It all began to feel quite normal. That is the right word for it; normal.

It was now normal for me to drive right past the home where Rose was staying as I went to and from wherever doing this and that. I would drive by on my way to pick up one of the youth for an activity, look over, and think to myself, “I should go visit Rose.” But I was on my way somewhere else, somewhere worthwhile, so I would vow to visit Rose later. I would pass by Rose’s center on my way to meet the missionaries somewhere, look over and be reminded I hadn’t yet been by to see Rose. “I should make a note to go see Rose”, I would tell myself, and then hurry off to meet the Elders. I recall one day driving past having finished my work for the day and thinking, “now is the time to go see Rose.” It was dark, it was late, and I was tired. I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal, I would get by to see her. She wasn’t going anywhere, besides, no one but me seems to be able to move her. I went home.

Sometime later the senior missionaries told me a story. It had been just a little too long since they had seen Rose so they scheduled some time to drop in and visit.
Rose wasn’t there.
Rose had passed away.
The people at the home had done their best to contact someone but Rose had listed no relatives and left no point of contact. With no one to contact Rose had been buried by the state. The employees at the home were only disclosing this information to the senior couple because they recognized the logo on the name tags as the same logo on Rose’s copy of the Book of Mormon.
Riddled with guilt I asked where she was buried.
“They don’t know. They said people buried by the state are put in unmarked graves. They have no idea where she is. Sorry.”

That was that. Rose was gone.

I know enough of the gospel to know that Rose is in a better place. It wouldn’t be hard to be better than an empty living room in a wheel chair. Yet when I think of Rose I mostly remember that I drove past her house, thought I should stop, and didn’t.
My little family was in the airport getting ready to board a plane when my little three year old yanked on my sleeve, “Look Dad, it’s Rose!” she said pointing to an old stranger in a wheel chair. “O yeah, that does look kinda like Rose.” I say in my best fatherly voice; encouraging and matter of fact. But it wasn’t Rose. Rose was gone.

Where Rose is now, she can smile with teeth. She can stand. When I knew her she couldn’t do either of those things. I should be happier about that. But I haven’t changed all that much, I’m thinking about my own guilt and failure to act. I’m trying hard to get better and I think I am making some progress. Slow progress. Rose didn’t have time to wait for me to get better. I couldn’t fix all Rose’s problems, but I could have helped more than I did.

How many Roses do we drive past every day without stopping? Let’s do a little better.

Mancation: Joseph Smith and an old Navy Pilot

We woke Sunday morning having slept in the car at a highway rest stop. The night before we attempted to get a spot at Camp Joseph. I knocked on the door of a cabin and a confused gentleman explained it was after hours and reservations must be made in advance. He wished us luck and we drove off looking for an inconspicuous place to sleep. We were tired.

This same man saw us parked in the church parking lot early the next morning. He strolled past, paused, then came back and inquired how we were. We said we were great. He asked where we spent the night. As Kaleo answered him, the man’s face fell. Kaleo ensured him we were fine, but the man entered the church building with newly slumped shoulders.

Having guessed at the start time of services, we arrived more than an hour early. This was fine with us, church wasn’t the only reason we were here.

Sharon Vermont is the birthplace of the prophet Joseph Smith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has constructed a visitors center and a sort of memorial on the site of the Smith’s ancestral home. It wasn’t yet open that morning but a grey haired man wearing a missionary name tag, neck tie in hand, emerged from a side door as we crossed the lot.

With an honest smile he waved us over, fishing in his pocket for a set of keys. “Come on, come on. Let me open things up for you. I was headed to choir practice but I think they can wait a minute or two.” The man, without asking us our religious affiliation, pulled us in and commenced to giving us the tour complete with explanations of the roots of Mormonism. Half way through he paused and asked us how much we already knew about the church. Learning our answer he paused, chuckled a little, then launched right back into his explanations. The man was sincere, informative, and in an incredibly good mood for having opened up shop more than four hours early. After giving us the lay of the land, he headed off for choir practice, and we headed off into the woods.

Great beards in Mormonism

The woods where Joseph was born 208 years ago are green and rocky. The family had 100 acres that sat alongside a ‘highway’, complete with babbling brook. The moss growing over the stone foundations of a home long gone was reminiscent of a Tolkien novel and we half expected to meet a hobbit, or maybe a talking lion. We met none of those things, but once we made it to church we did meet possibly the coolest guy ever.

Wearing the same clothes from yesterday we sat near the back of a crowded chapel. A voice from the row behind us loudly asked, “Where did you get that tan?” directing his question toward Kaleo.

“I’m Hawaiian”.

The voice came from a grey haired man with a chiseled jaw. He wore a tweed jacket, sported bushy eyebrows rivaling the infomercial juicer guy, and spoke a little too loudly. Hard of hearing perhaps.

“I used to own a hundred acres on the big island; worked as a ranch hand. I was a pilot flying the one plane that used to go between the big island and Oahu.”

“You should have held on to that. Its probably worth a lot of money now.”

“People used to try to get me to sell that property all the time. There was this one guy from Japan, he bought up all the acres on the coast and I sold to him. He built a resort there and every day he flies in a plane full of people from Tokyo. I had put into the contract that I would have a free room in the resort for the rest of my life. I’ve never used it.”

With these two paragraphs our aged friend cemented his place as forever cooler than any of the three of us will ever be.

Preston’s curiosity was piqued and he asked when he started flying.

“Flew in the navy in World War 2, but I don’t talk about the navy.”

Preston offered that his grandfather-in-law flew in the navy. “I do not talk about the navy.” was his direct reply.

With that the services began. As the prelude music started up, our new friend began belting out an unintended solo, unaware that the chorister up front had not yet waved in the congregation. The old man did not care and we added a couple more cool points to his ledger.

Kaleo fell asleep during sacrament meeting.

As we left our tour guide from earlier ran to catch us. “I have to tell you how happy it made me when I saw you three waltz in to the services in your street clothes. You looked completely comfortable.” He has obviously never been to my home church in Philly.

We loaded back up.

“So where exactly is Cape Cod?”

“I’m not sure,” Preston answered, “…but that’s where we are headed.”

A Look Inside the Mormon Temple… kinda

While most of the globe has been explored there still remain many mysteries out in the world. To most, the inside of a Mormon temple is one of those great mysteries.

Artist's rendition of the temple to be built in Philadelphia

In my faith there is no place holier than a dedicated temple. There are thousands of Mormon church buildings worldwide but only 134 temples. Churches are where weekly services are held, they are open to everyone; feel free to visit one whenever you like.

Temples are only open to baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and then not all members, but only those who are living up to a basic set of standards including no: alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, or extramarital (or premarital) sex. In addition to the don’t s, an individual must also pay tithes (10%), regularly attend Sunday church services, and live up to any legal obligations (child support if applicable and those sorts of things).

Ground breaking ceremony

On Saturday my wife and I were honored to be able to attend the groundbreaking ceremony for a temple that will be constructed on Logan Circle in Philadelphia. For believers this is an exciting event, the type that most will never repeat in their lifetime.  I do not expect I will do such a thing again.

The mayor was there. City council members, various religious leaders, and nearby business leaders, and an apostle of Jesus Christ were all there.

Here comes the part that most readers of this blog should find interesting…

When temple construction is completed, before it is officially dedicated, the building is open for public tours. While construction will likely take two years, I am sending an open invitation now; I will personally take any and all interested readers on a personal tour through the Philadelphia temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

It would be my pleasure.

The Mrs. and I

If you look closely at minute 1:35 you will see my wife and I in the background. ABC NEWS