Evergreen

One of the best gifts I ever received was unwrapped unexpectedly at the Alpine roundabout three winters ago. I've thought about it often but have always been frustrated at translating it into words. In the midst of writer's block I recalled this story from a packet of required reading in one of my design classes at BYU:

When I was 19, I hesitated about going on a mission. I yearned for some kind of spiritual assurance about my faith and the direction of my life. In the midst of this turbulence I went very late one night to the St. George Tabernacle using the key I carried with me as an assistant organist. I sat alone at the organ with a small reading light for about two hours filling that darkened, historic building with the sounds of Bach and the hymns of Zion. When I finished somehow I just knew I should go on a mission. I had been lifted and taught in spirit but not in ways that I could describe.

I have often wondered what it is about music and aesthetic experience that connects those things with our most significant sense of feeling and meaning.

Music and aesthetic beauty. They are roots that connect me to my deepest sense of self. I FEEL things are true or right long before I ever UNDERSTAND why they are so. I trust my feeler.

That night three years ago RE had been invited to a classmate's cat-themed birthday party (I only remember because she hated it-she had to communicate with meows and lap cake and ice cream out of a bowl with her tongue) and of course it was snowing like crazy and Greg was working in Salt Lake. I had to man up and drive over the river and through the woods to drop her off.

After safely making it to Cat House my white knuckles and I headed for home. It was 7 pm on a December weekend but oddly enough I was the only car on the dark road. The snow suddenly changed from blizzard snow to snowglobe snow; the kind that falls slowly in fat flakes and doesn't smear on the windshield and blur your vision. I was listening to my favorite rendition of "O Holy Night" on volume 27 (my car goes to volume 39; 27 is just below going deaf but loud enough the marrow in my thickest bone can hear). I approached the twinkling roundabout as the chorus swelled. Something about being the only car around, the black sky, the silent snow, the string lights wrapped around every twig, the song...

All the elements were stirred in that circle and like epoxy solidified forever inside of me. I cannot forget what I felt in that moment. I simply knew that Christ was real and I felt how much He loved me. I also felt how much I loved Him.

That was three Decembers ago. Two Decembers ago was the failed IVF. Last December I was newly pregnant. This year I hold the babe in my arms. My Decembers have been as varied as they come but my constant has been the Savior. Whether complacent, hollow, hopeful, or healed He has known my needs. In this world of drought, fatigue, waning, and weakening the Savior is evergreen. He is alive and he is the source of life.

Excerpt from "To Enliven the Soul" by Bruce C. Hafen, Provost, Brigham Young University, Church Music Workshop Keynote, July 31, 1990. My other favorite paragraph: The great German composer Johannes Brahms was a deeply religious man; he was also among the most technically profound of all composers. Over the years I have come to feel special appreciation for his music. When I saw Reid Nibley on campus a few years ago I told him I was on a Brahms kick. He said, "Are things really that bad?" And not long ago in a private prayer by my bedside I found myself asking the Lord if he ever sees Johannes Brahms. If he does, I said, please thank him for me.